During the pandemic, Clarissa Adams, a manager for a popular chain of craft stores, worked harder to cover for missing workers and hunt for scarce job candidates.
“They just kept piling on more jobs to do but they didn’t pay you more” for a standard 40-hour work week, says Adams, 30, who lives in Denver.
So a year ago, she quit and took a position with a maid service that pays her a commission for each house cleaning she completes no matter how long it takes. She typically works 20 to 30 hours a week but gets a full-time salary that tops her retail pay.
“It gives me time so I can work on my craft,” says Adams, who paints, draws and sells her own jewelry.
During the white-hot labor market of the past couple of years, Americans have been earning healthy wage increases but putting in fewer hours. In May, the average workweek edged down to 34.3 hours. That’s more than half an hour less than the typical 35 hours they logged in January 2021 and matches the low reached shortly before COVID (excluding the depths of the crisis in March 2020), Labor Department figures show.
At the same time, employers added a booming 339,000 jobs in May, signaling a still-strong labor market. That’s an unusual combination. As customer demand rises, employers generally give existing workers more hours until they’re forced to add new employees.
Economists and staffing officials attribute the shorter workweek to employees’ desire for more flexible schedules and businesses’ reluctance to lay off employees even as the economy slows, among other factors.
“Though more people are working, they are working fewer hours on average,” economist Marisa Di Natale of Moody’s Analytics wrote in an analysis.
The June jobs report, due out Friday, is expected to reveal whether the average workweek stayed low or declined further and whether job growth is slowing. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg estimate a solid 225,000 jobs were added last month but that would be down from an average 283,000 the past three months.
Here’s why workers are putting in fewer hours:
Better work-life balance
In the early days of the pandemic, worker absences and persistent labor shortages forced millions of employees to put in more hours. In a survey by Harris Poll last year, most workers said they continued to feel burned out.
Sixty-two percent of employees now say it’s important that a company offers flexible work hours and nearly half of firms are offering that option, according to a survey in December by Harris Poll for Express Employment Professionals, a staffing firm.
Craig Willatt, founder of Alpine Maids, the company that employs Adams, said he switched to a commission-based compensation model three years ago because maids who took longer to clean a home were logging more hours and making more money than those who were more efficient. That sparked resentment from the more productive staffers.
But he also wanted to attract and retain workers during a period of dire labor shortages.
“COVID definitely gave me the perspective that it’s not just about pay and benefits,” Willatt says. “It’s about their whole life and their relationship to work.”
He says his employees told him, “‘If I can just go home early, that would mean the world to me.'”
Now, he says, maids are staying with the company an average of 18 months, up from six months before the switch, reducing turnover and increasing profits.
Most days, Adams says, she starts work at 8:30 a.m. and finishes at 2:30 p.m. to 3 p.m., when she can focus on her jewelry business.
“I’m always challenging myself to see how much I can get done and be fast,” she says. Yet, she adds, “I’m still really thorough.”
Few layoffs
Despite a slowing economy, layoffs have remained remarkably low.
The drop in average hours could signal that employers are hoarding workers because of labor shortages, Bank of America economists say. Even though sales are slowing, bosses aren’t laying off staff because they fear they won’t be able to find replacements when conditions improve. Instead, they’re giving each worker fewer hours.
“Companies are really looking at layoffs as a last resort,” says Jim McCoy, senior vice president of staffing firm Manpower. “Rehiring is quite expensive and they don’t want that business disruption.”
Though the reduced hours could mean weekly pay has flattened or dipped for some workers, many are willing to accept the trade-off for a better work-life balance and are less eager to switch jobs because they know the market is cooling, says Stephanie Miller, director of talent acquisition and recruitment at Express Employment International, a staffing firm.
More workers want part-time jobs
Many Americans are choosing to work part time rather than full time for better work-life balance, says Amy Glaser, senior vice president of staffing firm Adecco. Others, such as retirees, are taking part-time gigs or moonlighting to better cope with high inflation, she says. Overall, that reduces the average number of hours worked by each employee.
In May, 21.5 million Americans, or 13.4% of all workers, voluntarily worked part-time, up from 18.1 million, or 12% of all workers, in January 2021.
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A return to normal
When employers struggled to find workers during the worker shortages, they gave existing employees more hours. Now that the labor shortages are easing, the average number of hours for each employee may be getting back to normal, Di Natale says.
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