What is partial employment?

Question

Zippia Team · Accepted Answer

Partial employment is when a worker is employed in less than a full-time capacity, resulting from a lack of work. In certain situations, organizations might offer their employees reduced working hours instead of laying them off completely or making them redundant.

Employers might choose to put employees on a partial employment plan in these types of scenarios:

The employer does not want to fully terminate the employee or the role
The employer is transitioning to automation but still needs workers to fill the gap during this transition
The employer is offering reduced hours to certain employees because of budget cuts

Partial employment can also refer to the situation in which a worker who has several part-time jobs loses one of them and, as a result, does not have a work week consisting of cumulated full-time hours (35 to 40 or more) because of the loss of one of the jobs.