We really like interesting data visualizations here at Small Business Labs. And the folks at the Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank have created a couple of great charts on part-time U.S. employment.
The Atlanta Fed chart below (click to enlarge) shows the percentage of people working part-time for economic and non-economic reasons.
People reporting they are working part-time for economic reasons (PTER) would prefer to work full-time but are working part-time because of slack work or business conditions, or because they could find only part-time work.
People reporting they work part-time for non-economic reasons (PTNER) are choosing part-time work.
This type of chart is called a "lollipop" chart because each of the data points looks kinda like a lollipop. The "lolly" end of the lollipop denotes the average mix part-time due to economic reasons versus part-time due to non-economic reasons by industry in 2013. The size of the "lolly" represents the size of the industry and the bottom of the stem shows the mix in 2007.
According to the Atlanta Fed the primary takeaways from the chart are:
- The percent of the workforce that is part time varies greatly across industries (compare for example, durable goods manufacturing with restaurants).
- All industries have a greater share of PTNER workers than PTER workers (for example, the restaurant industry in 2013 had 32 percent of workers who said they were PTNER and about 13 percent who declared themselves as PTER).
- All industries had a greater share of PTER workers in 2013 than in 2007 (all the lollipops point upwards).
- Most industries have a lower share of PTNER workers than in the past (most of the lollipops lean to the left).
- Most industries have a greater share of part-time workers (PTER + PTNER) than in the past (the increase in PTER exceeds the decline in PTNER for most industries).
Very cool chart and a great way to visually represent data.
The article goes on to compare 2013 with 2012. This analysis shows fewer part-timers for economic reasons and a decline in the overall percentage of people working part-time. Go to the article for more details.
Comments
You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.