As Health Law Changes Loom, A Shift To Part-Time Workers
Nearly all of the remaining provisions of the new health care law go into effect next January, including one that requires businesses with 50 or more full-time employees to pay for their health care or pay a penalty.
Some businesses may already be making personnel changes to save money when that provision of the Affordable Care Act kicks in. One option on the table: shifting full-time workers to part time.
Duane Davis thinks that's what happened to him. He'd probably still be stocking clothing at the Juicy Couture store in New York City if he still got 30 to 40 hours a week of work like he used to. The work environment "was very cool," he says, and he liked his co-workers.
But Davis quit because he couldn't get enough hours. If he'd stayed and worked 30 or more hours a week, he would have been eligible for employer-paid health care starting next year. But earlier this year, Davis says, he was told he could work no more than 23 hours.
"If we were ever going over those hours, they'd tell us to go home. Because we were going over the amount of hours that we were given for the week," Davis says.
According to Davis, business wasn't down and there was plenty to do. But he says management seemed eager to shift its employee roster from majority full time to majority part time.
Davis has no proof, but he suspects it's because the company is preparing for the new health care law.
"It was crazy," Davis says of the hour limits. "I was always trying to understand — if you don't have hours to give out to part-time workers, why [are] you hiring new part-time workers?"
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