IES Blog

Hiring increases due to influx of part-time jobs

Posted on October 12th, 2012 Read time: 1 minutes

Small businesses are putting their HR services to work, as they seek to hire more employees to push their operations toward success.

The most recent report from the Labor Department, released this week, found that while job openings dropped by 32,000 to 3.56 million in August, hiring increased. Employers contracted 4.39 million people in August – the highest number since May.

Despite the positive gains, NPR notes that hiring needs to grow even further in order to relieve the more than 12 million people who are still out of work. The news source explains that 100,000 jobs need to be added every month to keep pace with the working age population in the U.S.

However, the increase in hiring was primarily caused by an influx of part-time jobs, according to the federal agency.

The report followed a surprisingly positive month for the unemployment rate, which fell to 7.8 percent. This marked the first time in three-and-a-half years that the rate fell below 8 percent.

Related Articles