It’s so weird to use a term like underemployment rate and not loose a word on what is supposed to mean.
I’ve seen it defined as the number of people in employment but are employed at fewer hours they desire expressed as a percentage of the total number of ‘employed’ people (for any number of hours, including zero hour contracts), i.e. a person on 25 hours a week who is looking for additional work is underemployed, not unemployed.
These statistics are estimated/imputed.
Employed people can be underemployed either because:
- they worked less than their usual hours for economic reasons (i.e. due to being 'stood down, or there was insufficient or no work available (sometimes referred to as the ‘Cyclical underemployed’)
- they would prefer (and are available) to work more hours than they usually work (sometimes referred to as the ‘Structural underemployed’).
25 hour work week at a 200k full time equivalent sounds dope as hell.
The difference is if you were working a 25 hour week at FTE, but weren’t actively willing to seek more hours, then you wouldn’t be considered underemployed. To all intents and purposes you are being satisfied by your current remuneration.
In the same way, people who aren’t actively looking for work aren’t counted in unemployment statistics.
I make maybe a third of that and I’m given weird looks when I ask to work less then full time. I think there is a attitude at the company that part time is for women.
