Authored by Phil Cohen
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The Affordable Care Act hasn’t only affected the temporary staffing industry. It’s also creating a shift from full-time employment to part-time employment as more employers seek to stay below the 30-hour health insurance requirement.
The Wall Street Journal reported that many restaurants are redesigning their workforces to escape the employer mandate of the Affordable Care Act. Restaurants such as White Castle are reported to be considering only part-time workers. CKE Restaurants Inc., owner of the Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s chains began replacing full-timers with part-timers last year. The hospitality industry hired more workers than any other industry in June 2013. This likely reflects the hiring of additional part-time employees to offset the lack of full-timers.
Plenty of businesses are turning to staffing agencies or part-time employment to bypass the cost of mandatory health insurance coverage. The United States employment numbers as a whole demonstrate that businesses have added far more part-time employees than full-time employees in 2013. The hire of part-time employees averaged 93,000 a month versus 22,000 full-time workers per month. That wasn’t the case in 2012 when employers added 32,000 part-time workers and 171,000 full-time employees per month.