The first time I heard the words ‘part-time’ was as an impressionable young football fan on the terraces of West Bromwich Albion. ‘Part-time supporters’ (sung to the same tune as that old classic ‘Robson for England’) was one of the milder ways of taunting opposing fans along the same lines as ‘you’re not singing any more’ or ‘you only sing when you’re winning’. Maybe those early football-supporting days gave me the view that being part-time was something undesirable. However, now that I am a part-time worker myself, I think my attitudes, along with those of the rest of society, have changed.
Over the last year, the number of parttime workers in the UK has risen to nearly 8 million people, the highest figure since records began in 1984. In recent months, part-time jobs have grown at a similar rate to the disappearance of full-time jobs. There are 7.8 million part-time workers in the UK economy compared with 18.2 million fulltimers; in other words, 30% of the UK workforce is now in part-time employment.
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