A new report by the Atlanta Federal Reserve sheds light on today’s economy.  When compared with 2007, the U.S. labor market now has about 2.5 million more people working part-time and about 2.2 million fewer people working full-time. In this sense, U.S. businesses are more reliant on part-time workers now than in the past.

But that doesn’t necessarily imply we are moving toward a permanently higher share of the workforce engaged in part-time employment. Almost all jobs created on net from 2010 to 2014 have been full-time. As a result, from 2009 to 2014, the part-time share of employment has declined from 21 percent to 19 percent and is about halfway back to its prerecession level.

But the decline in part-time utilization is not uniform across industries and occupations. In particular, the decline is much slower for occupations that tend to have an above-average share of people working part-time. This portion of the workforce includes general-service jobs such as food preparation, office and administrative support, janitorial services, personal care services, and sales.

To read the entire report by the Atlanta Fed, please click the following link — http://bit.ly/1DLxuqs.