Yesterday when I estimated that half of the new jobs created in May were probably part time jobs, I was way off. In reality, 287% of the new jobs created in May were part-time jobs. Check out page ten of the new jobs report (Warning PDF file):

Persons at work part time, in thousands
All Industries	     January	February    March     April	     May
Economic Reasons	      4,714	 4,437	   4,733     4,574     4,665
Non-Economic Reasons   18,905	18,900	  19,006    19,000    19,621
Total		     23,619	23,337	  23,739    23,574    24,286

Nonagricultural  
Economic Reasons	      4,613	 4,328	   4,622     4,471     4,605
Non-Economic Reasons   18,636	18,691	  18,693    18,664	    19,220
Total		     23,249	23,019	  23,315    23,135    23,825

"Noneconomic reasons" means that the employees in question only wanted part-time work, and thus are not considered underutilized labor. "Economic reasons" means the opposite.

There are probably two main causes for the May surge in part time employment for non-economic reasons:

• College students starting part-time jobs over the summer
  
• The babies from the August 2003 blackout would have been born in May 2004, thus causing many people to switch to part-time employment to take care of their newborns.

No matter the causes, there were far more part-time jobs created in May than there were total jobs created in May. 712,000 part time jobs created minus 248,000 total jobs created equals 464,000 fewer people working full-time jobs in May than in April.

Overall, since February 949,000 part time jobs have been created. This number is almost identical to the total number of all jobs created since February, 947,000. According to the Department of Labor, over the past three months, full-time employment in this country has barely changed at all.