Part Time Employment

Kudo lost both his job and his home on the same cursed day. His construction boss told him to pack his things and clear out of the company dorm that very afternoon. Just like that, the single 30-year-old from the northern island of Hokkaido joined the ranks of Japan's burgeoning economic underclass. He slept on the subway and camped out at a Denny's, pretending to read a book while sneaking catnaps. He spent his days at a pay phone, dialing for work.

Kudo lost both his job and his home on the same cursed day. His construction boss told him to pack his things and clear out of the company dorm that very afternoon. Just like that, the single 30-year-old from the northern island of Hokkaido joined the ranks of Japan's burgeoning economic underclass. He slept on the subway and camped out at a Denny's, pretending to read a book while sneaking catnaps. He spent his days at a pay phone, dialing for work.

In an age when many college students work because they cannot afford the soaring cost of education, Gail Ideno is working because she wants to. "My parents can afford to send me," said the 21-year-old senior at Claremont McKenna College, a private liberal arts school where tuition and room and board are about $20,000 a year. "But they're not rich," she adds. "They've made a lot of sacrifices to send me to school."

Shelby Shenkelman enjoys working as a pricing analyst for a company that produces airline meals. At 25, she is making more than $50,000 a year. "It should not be a bad salary," she said. That is, unless you have $30,000 in student loans, a $300-a-month car payment, some credit card debt, grocery bills that seem to be going up and rent that definitely is going up. "I can survive on my one paycheck, but it's very, very difficult. It's very, very tight," the Reston, Va., resident said.

Part-time employment for retired people is available through the Inglewood Senior AIDES program. Anyone receiving Social Security or a retirement pension and living in the South Bay is eligible to apply for the federally funded program. For information call 412-5558.

Before passing Rep. Pat Schroeder's (D-Colo.) Family and Medical Leave Act, Congress should take a close look at the European experience with this high-cost mandated benefit. There, mandated family-leave laws have forced business owners to hire women of child-bearing age in part-time rather than full-time positions to avoid paying this costly benefit. In the five industrialized European countries that require paid or partially paid leave for mothers, between 1973 and 1983, growth in full-time employment of women was flat or negative while part-time employment for women increased dramatically (more than 104% in France alone)

This is just a note to inform you that I was particularly delighted to read Ruth Ryon's insightful article. Imagine my surprise when I saw the headlines in the Real Estate section referring to my neighborhood, "The Jungle." I have lived in "The Jungle" since 1967, when it was a community of predominantly young black professionals. Though it has made a transition to housing many low-income people, and the community now must contend with crime and drugs--there are still many black professionals living in "The Jungle."

The hiring of temporary and part-time workers without health benefits has far outpaced the rate of growth in full-time employment during the nation's fledgling economic recovery, leading to a sharp decrease in job security in the United States, the Clinton Administration said Monday. The Economic Report of the President, released by the White House, said that part-time employment has grown 6.4% in the last three years, while full-time payrolls have increased by just 1.7%.

The Pacific Maritime Assn. will distribute applications today at 9 a.m. at unemployment offices in Compton, Long Beach and Torrance for 1,000 part-time longshoreman jobs, according to a longshoreman's union bulletin. The jobs, which are so coveted that openings usually occur only every five to 10 years, involve loading and unloading ships and barges in the Los Angeles harbors.

The fraternity is a small one and hard to spot, for there are very few indicators that point toward membership in this intensely private, loosely linked band of very Merry Men. They're the ones with smaller paychecks and bigger smiles, aging Toyotas rather than new BMWs, freedom instead of frustration. They're the men who buck convention and work part time-- because they want to.

The Los Angeles city parks department plans to lay off nearly 140 temporary workers and reduce hours for hundreds more, cutbacks that union officials argued Wednesday will lead to dirtier restrooms, unkempt playgrounds and reduced security at Griffith Observatory. The job cuts began in September and will continue this week, focused primarily on part-time workers across the city who maintain ball fields and recreation centers.

An increasing portion of America's working mothers says their ideal situation would include a part-time job, rather than working full time or staying at home, a new national survey finds. The Pew Research Center survey, being released today, found that 21% of working mothers with children younger than 18 viewed full-time work as the best arrangement, down from 32% in 1997. Sixty percent of the working mothers said a part-time job would be best, up from 48% 10 years ago.

Dominick Jaramillo stared out at the parking lot at the Arrowhead Pond. Inside, a trade show was in progress, one of those events that can help fill out an arena's schedule and requires only a skeleton event staff. "Cost certainty" and "salary cap," the buzzwords hovering over the NHL lockout, mean nothing to Jaramillo, a parking director at the Pond. He looked out at the mostly empty parking lot and saw money for college flying away.

As a Los Angeles school board member, Mike Lansing serves 900,000 students and helps administer a budget of $6.8 billion. That's twice the number of people a state assemblyman represents, and more money than the gross domestic product of Ethiopia. But technically, being a board member is part-time duty. It pays $24,000 a year. So Lansing juggles his day job -- directing two Boys & Girls clubs -- with his other day job, serving on the Los Angeles Board of Education.

On reflection, demoting California's Legislature to part-time status sounded like a better idea last summer than it does today. That's probably because there are more signs of potential reform now than there were in the pre-Schwarzenegger era. It may also be because the notion of a part-time Legislature has started to look like a real possibility. And, in the harsh reality of daylight, this picture is not pretty. It's tainted with corruption, for starters. I plead guilty.

When Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger suggested that serving in the California Legislature should not be a full-time job, it gave new life to Jim Bouskos' stalled political dream. "Believe me, he did me a world of good," said the Fresno business consultant and real estate developer, who is promoting the idea of a one-house, 100-member legislature that would meet for six months a year.

Part-time work is booming in America, which is good news for those who value flexibility or just want to pick up a few extra bucks. But a more ominous trend is also on the upswing: part-time work that isn't voluntary. In fact, more Americans who were used to full-time jobs are being forced to take lower-paying part-time work, usually without benefits. Consider 34-year-old Julie Martinez, who supports a family of three.

Since 1990, Carol Wright has held the unglamorous title of substitute teacher. She works three jobs, clips coupons and spoils herself with a vacation every five to 10 years. Her modest, one-story home in San Bernardino has a minifridge and no stove. She's put up with years of low pay and students who don't like to listen to a "sub" and, in exchange, has avoided the grind of a full-time job.

After being out of work for nearly four months, what 50-year-old Norma Ramirez of Glendale most wants for Christmas is a paycheck, specifically from a seasonal sales position at JCPenney during the retailer's busiest time of year. "I want this job a lot," Ramirez said as she filled out an application earlier this month at a computer kiosk inside the Glendale Galleria's JCPenney store.