The Job Hunt: Under-employed numbers increasing

More people are underemployed, or "involuntary part-time workers," a factor that started before the current recession in December 2007, according to recent figures from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Hooray. I (and 7.3 million other people working part-time for economic reasons) have a term to describe their unemployed status that is technically not unemployed. "Underemployed" workers are people seeking full-time jobs but can't find them. So they work 35 hours or less a week in part-time jobs.

I have a handful of part-time gigs, from freelance work that is very sporadic, to writing for WalletPop at least once a day, depending on my job hunt schedule. So I know what "underemployed" is all about. In November 2008, 7.3 million people were employed part-time for economic reasons, up by 3.4 million from a recent low of 3.9 million in April 2006.