One type of worker we want fewer of: involuntary part-timers

Here’s one type of work we want to see less of: involuntary part-time work. And the November jobs report showed the number of people working part-time for economic reasons continued to fall. This time, it declined by 177,000 from October to November.

This group includes people who are working part-time and want to work full-time, but can’t find a full-time job or get the hours. It has been on a long-term decline since 2009, with an encouraging steady decline in the last few months.

While we keep our eyes closely on the number of unemployed, this is another group that it can be hard to forget about. Yes, they’re employed, but they are underemployed, and there’s still a lot of them — nearly 7 million. And it’s a reminder that just giving someone a job isn’t necessarily enough; those jobs have to be good jobs (and have to provide enough hours to sustain a person).