More Restaurants Replace Full-Timers With Part-Timers

WSJ reports:

Restaurants and bars have been adding an average of 50,000 jobs monthly since April—about double the rate from 2012. In June, they added a seasonally adjusted 51,700 jobs, up from May's 47,900 tally, but below April's 51,800. Overall, leisure-and-hospitality establishments hired more workers than any other industry in June, accounting for 75,000 of the 195,000 jobs added last month, according to the most recent Labor Department report. [...] . But a number of restaurants and other low-wage employers say they are increasing their staffs by hiring more part-time workers to reduce reliance on full-timers before the health-care law takes effect.[...]

For the entire U.S. workforce, employers have added far more part-time employees in 2013—averaging 93,000 a month, seasonally adjusted—than full-time workers, which have averaged 22,000. Last year the reverse was true, with employers adding 31,000 part-time workers monthly, compared with 171,000 full-time ones.

The Affordable Care Act requires employers with 50 or more full-time equivalent workers to offer affordable insurance to employees working 30 or more hours a week or face fines. Some companies have said the requirement could increase their costs significantly, although others have played down the potential hit.[...]

 Rod Carstensen, owner of 11 Del Taco restaurants around Denver, began in April converting his mostly full-time workforce into one comprising mostly part-time help to minimize his health-care costs. He estimates the costs could have climbed by as much as $400,000 a year without the change.

Mr. Carstensen had 180 full-time and 40 part-time workers and is in the process of switching to 80 full-time and 320 part-time workers who clock no more than 28 hours per week. He is plowing ahead despite the Obama administration's reprieve, he said, because "we need to get there anyway, and it will take until January 1, 2015, to make this transition."