American workers are increasingly facing the prospect of their full-time job being cut to part-time work as the nation's economy plunges itself deeper into recession. People the government classifies as working part time involuntarily - predominantly those who have lost hours or cannot find full-time work - swelled to 5.3 million last month, a jump of greater than a million over the last year. These workers amount to 3.7 percent of all those employed, up from 3 percent a year ago, and the highest level since 1995. The shift to part-time work particularly has affected men, and more specifically, Hispanic men.
See "Slowing U.S. economy swells ranks of part-time workers", Peter S. Goodman, International Herald Tribune, July 30, 2008