The part-time employees.  When you say the words “part-time”, I think of kids working at fast-food places after school,  or a parent earning extra money for Christmas presents.  The “New Part-time” is where businesses have replaced full-time employees with part-time employees.  Great idea that some of my fellow accountants came up with.  Keep employee hours under XX and they do not qualify for health benefits, 401k, vacation, etc. etc.  You will save loads of money.  I do not blame my fellow accountants entirely, they were just trying to keep businesses alive.

I worked with intelligent adjunct professors, graduates of very prestigious colleges and universities but they could not get a full-time teaching position.  They would work at the community college 3 days a week, drive 30 miles the next day to a university in New Jersey, teaching online courses at night.  They had a family but no health insurance, no benefits, hoping that they would be hired full-time.

It started with big box stores, having almost their entire staff as part-time except their managers that they worked to death to earn their full-time benefit status.

We must put the onus of taking care of the employees that generate your income back on the corporations.  Yes, the federal government, us Americans must take care of the poor and needy. However, the shift of taking care of the under employed from corporate responsibility to government responsibility is overwhelming.

I worked for great man that always cared about his 65 employees, he knew that without them the company was nothing.  He did not feel everyone was replaceable.  He felt if he hired you, he wanted you there and you wanted to be there and together we would make products and take care of each other.  This does not have to be nostalgic.  It can be the reality of today.  Many corporations talk about corporate responsibility, well maybe its time they act like it.

If you want to know how a person will behave, look at how they are being measured.  For example, if you focus on quantity and pay by piece work, you will have plenty of pieces but you will also have plenty of quality issues.

Tax rules started out as a flat tax.  Then congress wanted to motivate businesses to invest in equipment so there was the investment tax credit.  Then they wanted to motivate businesses to hire people, so they had the jobs tax credit.  Unfortunately, taxpayers spend a great deal of time and money trying to find loop-holes in the tax law. So now legislatures must give incentives to businesses to hire full-time employees with benefits.  How about a double tax incentive deduction for paying employees health care and 401k matches? Give businesses double the deduction for what they pay in health and retirement benefits.  There are individuals behind and inside these corporations that need to care of their most important resource, their employees.