Many now settling for part-time work

HACKENSACK, N.J. - Frustrated job hunters are increasingly, and reluctantly, turning to part-time work to make ends meet and improve their chances of getting a full-time job, say employment agencies and search firms.

They say that while job hunters in the past would shun part-time opportunities, preferring to focus on looking for full-time work, the grim economy has made part-time work more palatable.

"Nine months ago, I would have seen people holding out for the full-time job," said Marlena Lechner, a career development specialist for Jewish Family Services of Teaneck, N.J., who has helped three clients get part-time work in recent weeks. "Now people have to take what that can get."

Pete Weigang, branch manager for Manpower Inc., said now he frequently gets part-time work requests from people who wouldn't have touched it six months ago.

"The longer they are out of work, I think the realization comes to them that the positions that were out there six months ago aren't there," Weigang said. "Now, the criteria for what they are willing to do and their pay requirements have dropped."

Aside from economic reasons, job hunters work part time to make contacts and add to their skills, recruiters say. And there's often the hope the job will lead to a full-time position.

In some cases, workers whose hours have been cut look for a second, part-time job to make up for the lost hours.

Layne Johnson of Ridgewood, N.J., began consulting three days a week last August as an information manager for Rockefeller University of New York. He took the work after hunting unsuccessfully for nine months to replace the job he lost as global head of information management for Pfizer.

"I thought, 'I just have to keep myself professionally active,'" Johnson said.

Mike Petrula, 46, of Wayne, N.J., said he was willing to take part-time work almost as soon as he was laid off as a chemical manufacturer sales representative in March.

"I take whatever I can get to pay the bills," he said. But he added that a stint as a manager at a company that does high-speed medical document scanning also gave him experience outside his field.

Reluctant part-time workers are part of the underemployed sector, which has risen dramatically since the recession began, federal statistics show.

While the national unemployment rate is 9.5 percent, the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics also publishes a "labor underutilization" rate that, along with unemployed workers, includes people working part time for economic reasons or people who have stopped looking for work.

That rate, on a national level, stood at 16.5 percent of the workforce in June. It was 8.8 percent in December 2007, when the recession began.

Bureau figures show that the number of people involuntarily working part time has nearly doubled nationwide since the recession began, from 4.6 million to 9 million.

Three-quarters of those have had their hours cut due to a lack of work or business conditions, the figures show. Just under one-quarter are working part time because that's all the work they could get.

New Jersey's unemployment rate for June jumped to 9.2 percent, figures released Wednesday show, from 8.8 percent in May. Authorities don't calculate state figures for labor underutilization.

Mike Ramer, owner of Ramer Search Consultants Inc., an executive search and career counseling firm, said that even top executives will take short-term assignments, which wouldn't have happened in the past.

"It keeps them in the game," he said. "They are creating contacts in the new company. It shows they are working, and if you are working, you are a more valued commodity."

Fred A. Pulzello, 49, of Glen Rock, N.J., said he knew almost as soon as he lost his job in February, as a global records manager for a Wall Street company, that he would have to run a two-track hunt for work. Aside from job hunting, he set up his own consulting company, which at the moment brings him about 32 hours of work a week.

"I knew the market was tough," Pulzello said. But even if the consulting practice takes off, his goal is a full-time position.

"I need the stability," said Pulzello, who is married with four children, ages 10 to 16. "One of the biggest things is the health benefits."

(c) 2009, North Jersey Media Group Inc.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.