Brittany Luce

the Bureau of Labor Statistics measures, how many people say they are employed part-time for economic reasons?

And that means that they wanted a full-time job and they either couldn't find one, so they accepted a part-time job or they got their hours cut.

And the number of people employed part-time for economic reasons is at its highest level since 2021.

So this could also contribute to this malaise where I'm working, but I'm not happy in my job.

This isn't the job I really wanted.

I'm not getting enough hours, so I'm not making enough to support my family.

A lot of those things I think you could read into this number.

Right.

But I also remember this other trend in unemployment was happening not that long ago.

Y'all remember the great resignation?

It was only in 2021, 2022, when workers left their jobs in record numbers to look for other work.

That was like four or five years ago.

I feel like I have whiplash right now with how quickly the employment trends have shifted.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And, you know, there's this labor economist I've interviewed before who I think has captured a really nice empirical measure of this shift that you're describing, Brittany.

So his name is Aaron Sojourner.

He's a labor economist.

And he came up with something called the labor leverage ratio.

And it's very elegant.