It's tough finding a job these days. It's even tougher to find one that's full-time.
今找工作是个难事。要找一份全职工作就更难了。
More than four years after the recession ended, nearly a fifth of American workers are part-timers, well above normal levels. More than 8 million people are working part-time because they can't find full-time jobs. That's given rise to fears of deep, structural shifts in the U.S. labor market due to technology, globalization or perhaps the new health care law, which will require companies to provide health insurance to full-time employees.
经济衰退结束四年多之后，将近五分之一的美国劳动者从事兼职工作，远高于正常水平。800多万人从事兼职的原因是找不到全职工作。这引发人们对于美国劳动力市场出现深层次结构性变化的担忧，原因是科技发展、全球化，或许还有新医保法的因素，该法要求公司为全职员工提供医疗保险。
But a new paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco argues there's a simpler explanation for the rise of part-time work: the weak economy.
但旧金山联邦储备银行(Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco)的一篇新论文认为，兼职工作的兴起有一个更简单的原因：疲弱的经济。
Part-time employment is generally a mirror-image of the overall economy. When times are good, people pick up more hours, and more of them qualify as full-timers, which the Labor Department typically defines as anyone working 35 hours or more. When the economy sours, more people end up working part-time.
兼职就业通常反映出整体经济情况。世道好的时候，人们工作时间更长，也有更多的人符合全职员工的条件。依照美国劳工部(Labor Department)定义，全职员工指的是每周工作35小时或以上的任何人。经济不景气时，更多的人只能从事兼职工作。
The rise in part-time work during the latest recession wasn't out of step with past downturns. At the height of the recession, about 20% of workers were part-timers, up from about 17% when the recession began. That's worse than during the milder recessions of the 1990s and early 2000s, but actually a somewhat lower peak than in the severe recession of the 1980s.
最近一次经济衰退期间兼职工作增加的情况与以往经济低迷时一样。衰退最严重时期，约有20%的劳动者从事兼职，较衰退开始时的17%有所上升。相比上世纪90年代和本世纪初较为温和的衰退期间，本次的情况更为严重，但事实上这一峰值比上世纪80年代的严重衰退时期还要略低一些。
What has been different this time around is the pace of recovery. The share of Americans working part-time has fallen since the recession ended in June 2009, but only very slowly. In recent months, it has even edged back up, though it's too soon to say whether the uptick has been a real trend or a statistical oddity.
这一次的不同之处在于经济复苏的速度。自2009年6月经济衰退结束以来，从事兼职工作的美国人比例有所下降，但速度非常缓慢。最近几个月，这一比例甚至有所回升，不过目前还无法判断这种回升是真正的趋势还是统计学上的例外。
San Francisco Fed economists Rob Valletta and Leila Bengali argue that the slow rebound in full-time work is hardly surprising in the context of the slow recovery of the job market as a whole. Unemployment remains elevated at 7.4%, and millions of Americans have dropped out of the job market entirely.
旧金山联储银行经济学家瓦莱塔(Rob Valletta)和本加利(Leila Bengali)认为，在就业市场整体上复苏缓慢的情况下，全职工作反弹迟缓并不出人意料。美国失业率仍处于7.4%的高位，数百万美国人已经彻底退出就业市场。
'This is unsurprising given that the U.S. labor market has recovered only about three-fourths of the jobs lost during the recession and its aftermath, which leaves finding a full-time job still challenging for many workers, ' the researchers write.
这两位研究人员写道，这并不令人吃惊，因为美国劳动市场只恢复了衰退期间和之后损失就业岗位的四分之三左右，在这种情况下，找到全职工作对于许多劳动者来说仍然困难重重。
The government breaks down part-time workers into two main categories: Those working part-time for 'economic reasons'-meaning they'd prefer to work full-time if they could-and those doing so for 'noneconomic reasons' such as students, parents caring for small children or the semi-retired. Unsurprisingly, the rise in part-time work during the recession and recovery has been concentrated in the former category.
政府将兼职工作者划分为两个主要类别：因经济原因从事兼职工作者（即在可能的情况下更愿意从事全职工作），以及因非经济原因从事兼职者，如学生、需要照料幼儿的父母或半退休者。不出所料，衰退和复苏期间兼职工作人数的上升主要集中在前一类。
But Mr. Valletta and Ms. Bengali dig a bit deeper into these involuntary part-timers, distinguishing between former full-timers whose hours have been cut back and those who have taken part-time jobs because they can't find anything else. The first category has been declining fairly steadily during the recovery, though the progress has stalled a bit this year. But the second category has continued to trend upward.
但瓦莱塔和本加利更为深入了考察了这些非自愿的兼职者，将曾经从事全职工作但工作时间被削减的人与找不到别的工作而接受兼职者区分开来。经济复苏期间，前一类人的数量出现相对稳定的下降，不过今年这一下降过程有所停滞。但后一类人的数量继续呈上升趋势。
In other words, fewer companies are cutting hours, but they aren't yet hiring full-time workers. That pattern reflects another trend in the recovery: Layoffs have dropped back to pre-recession levels, but hiring remains slow. The problems are likely one and the same: Companies aren't disproportionately hiring part-timers; they just aren't hiring many workers at all. With jobs scarce, the unemployed are accepting whatever work they can find.
换句话说，削减工作时间的公司数量减少了，但它们尚未开始雇用全职工人。这种模式反映了经济复苏中的另一个趋势：裁员已经下降到衰退前的水平，但招聘依然缓慢。这些问题可能本来就是同一个：企业并非不成比例地招聘兼职工作者；它们只是压根儿没有招聘太多人。由于就业机会稀缺，失业者只能接受他们能找到的任何工作。
'It is more probable that the continued high incidence of individuals working part time for economic reasons reflects a slow recovery of the jobs lost during the recession rather than permanent changes in the proportion of part-time jobs, ' the authors write.
上述论文的作者写道，更有可能的情况是，一直有大量的个人因经济原因从事兼职工作，这反映出衰退期间损失的工作岗位恢复缓慢，而不是兼职工作比例的永久变化。
That's cold comfort to anyone looking for a job right now. But it means that if job growth does pick up, full-time employment should eventually return to normal levels.
这对于目前正在找工作的人来说是无用的安慰。但它意味着如果就业增长真的加快，全职就业机会最终将会回到正常水平。
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