Welcome to part-time Britain: Record 7.8m workers are not full-time

kabayiri

vivatifosi wrote: »

Exactly, I am what Charles Handy would call a portfolio worker. I have five jobs, four of which are paid. There is nothing stopping people doing several jobs if they want to in order to receive a full time wage equivalent. From my point of view it gives me a chance to do lots of different, interesting things. It also means that if I lose one job, I have other income streams which gives me greater security.

That was his book 'The Age of Unreason' wasn't it?

I read it. I think he was talking more about the changing profile of work as you progress through your working career though?

Is our system flexible enough to allow people to earn income from part time roles, or indeed periods of work lasting a few weeks followed by a break of a few weeks ?

I'm not sure it is.

I do know a few people who still work cash in hand, though. That hasn't gone away and we are being deprived of valuable tax income.

marklv

Asheron wrote: »

Record numbers of Britons are being forced to work part-time in a desperate move which cripples their finances, official figures revealed today.
Experts said the recession has triggered a new phenomenon – ‘part-time Britain’ – and warn the situation will get even worse as the Government takes the axe to the public sector.
Nearly one in eight State workers are expected to lose their job as the Government battles to control Britain’s financial crisis in what was described today as a ‘mass cull.’
Over the last year, the number of people who have a full-time job has collapsed by 468,000.
But the figures, from the Office for National Statistics, reveal a part-time jobs boom, with 255,000 people starting to work part-time.


Read entire article

Most part-time workers are women with full-time working partners.

This talk of 1 in 8 state workers losing their jobs is scaremongering. I very much doubt that 12-13% of public sector employees will be made redundant - it can't happen, for various reasons, not least of which is the huge cost of the redundancy payouts. There will a lot of early retirements and recruitment freezes, but I suspect that the numbers of compulsory redundancies will be a lot less than forecast by the press.

vivatifosi

marklv wrote: »

This talk of 1 in 8 state workers losing their jobs is scaremongering. I very much doubt that 12-13% of public sector employees will be made redundant - it can't happen, for various reasons, not least of which is the huge cost of the redundancy payouts.

There are other ways of cutting marklv. I am aware from one of my colleagues that where she used to work they cut her hours and pro-rated her salary. They could do that without making her redundant. They also cut enhanced pay for evening and weekend working and made all hours paid the same. Her only choice was to leave as she couldn't afford to continue to work. Reduction in pay c30%, redundancy cost to LA £0.

marklv

vivatifosi wrote: »

There are other ways of cutting marklv. I am aware from one of my colleagues that where she used to work they cut her hours and pro-rated her salary. They could do that without making her redundant. They also cut enhanced pay for evening and weekend working and made all hours paid the same. Her only choice was to leave as she couldn't afford to continue to work. Reduction in pay c30%, redundancy cost to LA £0.

Well, the unions might have something to say about that! This seems like a form of constructive dismissal and could be on very iffy legal grounds. In any case, the employer can do that with some admin or routine types of jobs, but for many jobs you can't simply put staff on a 3 day week without making it impossible for them to do their jobs at all - take IT for example, where everything is based on project deadlines.