Well they've come up with another way to make the unemployment numbers look good!

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/obamacar....

Quote:

Obamacare Mandate: Anyone Who Works 30-Hour Week Is Now 'Full-Time'

A little-known section in the Obamacare health reform law defines “full-time” work as averaging only 30 hours per week, a definition that will affect some employers who utilize part-time workers to trim the cost of complying with the Obamacare rule that says businesses with 50 or more workers must provide health insurance or pay a fine.

“The term ‘full-time employee’ means, with respect to any month, an employee who is employed on average at least 30 hours of service per week,” section 1513 of the law reads. (Scroll down to section 4, paragraph A.)

That section, known as the employer mandate, requires any business with 50 or more full-time employees to provide at least the minimum level of government-defined health coverage to those employees.

In other words, a business must provide insurance if it has 50 or more employees working an average of just 30 hours per week, which is 10 hours per week fewer than the traditional 40-hour work week.

If an employer has 50 or more "full-time employees" and does not offer health insurance, it must pay a penalty per employee for each month it does not offer coverage.

Another fraud so more people are forced to pay into Obamacare...

Hey, look at it this way: If employers start hiring two part time employees instead of one full time employee, we'll eventually hit record low levels of unemployment and you know what that means. Recovery!

Some businesses are already planning on going to 27-29 hours a week by Christmas.

This has always just been about getting more money to the federal government in the form of fines.

A business that hires part time instead of full time isn't going to be providing insurance to anyone. They'll opt out entirely and pay fines. That means money will go to the federal government instead of to insurance companies. Eventually the insurers will be bankrupted, will be nationalized and ALL the insurance money will go to the federal government.

"A business that hires part time instead of full time isn't going to be providing insurance to anyone. They'll opt out entirely and pay fines."

If they hire part time only they won't PAY any fines.

PPACA is for businesses 50 FULLTIME employees or greater. So what will happen is everyone goes to 28 hours a week, unemployment drops (as it has the past two months) and no one gets any benefits at all. The employee has to pay a fine, but the employer is off the hook. Those will actually get the coveted 50 fulltime slots will be seen as getting a huge benefit and perq of 'being allowed to work over 30 hours a week'.

Employees will be fined $95 to $2,085 depending on size and if FY 2013-16. This will cause media riots as poor little employees are forced to pay $695 and families pay $2,085 while their evil boss won't give them 30 hours or healthcare coverage and avoids any fines.

Leftists will scream bloody murder 'This was not the intent of the law when we wrote it...'.

This will result in a lightening fast addendum to either plug this loophole or move to nationalisation of the health insurance exchanges under one single payer and all your HC revenue belong to us.

I work in an employment and labor law firm that specializes in defense work for companies and corporations in the Southeast. We do it for all from the small business owner to Fortune 50 companies.

The amount of companies that intend to drop the amount of hours below 30 is staggering.

"The amount of companies that intend to drop the amount of hours below 30 is staggering."

I uttered 'Oh Boy' involuntarily when I read your post. I hate being right. Really. This brings me no joy. If I were stateside I would be the guy implementing this sort of policy but the stress and the social costs and...it's just not good.

This is going to be very disruptive to all restaurants, bars and clubs. People will work off the clock or punch out early on their own, or be punched out by mgmt.

Evening shifts start 4:30 to 6:00 and end 10:00 to 12mid cut. You cannot have someone work more than 4 night shifts because you cannot guarantee they won't go over 28 hours. This cuts them from 36 hours to 23 to 28, and they lose 2 nights income. Well that's what all want, those fat evening shifts. So now they cannot work as many and have lost 10k to 20k a year in income. Now they are earning only 300 to 600 per week and these people are all mercenaries.

BUT they cannot add shifts somewhere else because all places want you on staff there exclusively and then you cannot run over 28 hours. Club bartenders work 2X 12 hours for the Fri_Sat shift and then pay dues working the crap other shifts. Well, that cannot happen as they are all at 24 hours just on the weekends where they all made $1,600.

Managers won't be working more than 28 hours which is a disaster as they need to be worked to death to make a place profitable...my head hurts.

Offices:
Well, temp agencies are ****ed because now they cannot place anyone more than 28 hours a week and they make override on each hour. This is a loss of -25% per placement. Joy.

Direct Hires:
Are all going to be cut back in hours if they are not salary. You are going to see flex-time, 4 day weeks X 7 hours and other tricks implemented.

Construction:
Dios Mios I have no idea how bad this will get. Guys in Cali all work off clock, illegals, cash only, 60+ hours a week. You cannot swap workers mid week and expect quality to be maintained.

SuperMarkets:
Union, so they continue to raise food prices to get us to pay for this.

All other retail:
Is screwed.

The ramifications from this are going to be Cluster**** Central.

By February, 2013 this is gonna blow. That's when all the short hour checks will then be paid and everyone is out of money.

The entire country is about to get a -20% to -30% pay cut.

wow, thats a great analysis, Thanks Ben

Clarification:
This requirement implements in 2014 but companies are doing this early because, let's be frank, if they did this the day those provisions came into force they would be laughed out of court.

Currently, many businesses categorize full time employees anywhere from 32 to 35 hours a week. Restaurants and bars are notorious for keeping employees in part-time status to avoid benefits. I don't see a change there. I don't know where to find statistics but from my experience, a pretty high percentage of retail is part-time so I also don't expect much impact there either.

Ben--FYI--Vast majority of supermarkets are not union in the US.

Quote:

By February, 2013 this is gonna blow. That's when all the short hour checks will then be paid and everyone is out of money.

To compensate when the inevitable failure comes, federal minimum wage will be raised somewhere between 12-15 dollars. Whole new can of worms opens.

Legislating wage markets always ends badly.


Edit: What I want to know is if State Labor departments will change overtime laws to be work over 30 hours, or keep it at 40. Redefining "fulltime" leaves alot of questions.

35 to 28 is a -20% pay cut.

I used to be in the restaurant/bar business and many people worked 34-38 hours a week but no more. Now that 38 limit will drop to 28 over the next year. 20 years ago 35 or 40 (local law) was full time. Now it's 30, so 28 is what I would expect for a new soft cap by managers in that sector.

The issue is how shift hours are added.

The money is evenings, Fri Sat obviously and other strong nights depending on your clientele. Well, if you are the floor manager you need to super aggressively cut hours because 28 is the new 38 and that's a problem as I showed above.

You get a hotshot waiter who rolls in at 6 leaves at 11:30 or 12:15. He works 6 hours more or less. Now he is at 4 shifts, hard cap maybe picks up ONE lunch shift but that just wakes him up early and*****es him off as he earns too little money. You could, in the past, work him 6 or even 7 shifts, but now there is no way as that puts him at 42 hours or something insane you need to 'adjust'. Now your hotshot is at 3 or 4 shifts. Maybe 5 that's pushing your luck. He is*****ed - no money - and you have another problem to deal with. He just lost one or two night shifts and in 2012 at a good restaurant that is well over $200 USD per night. -$400. Bartending weekends? $800 per shift.

This has 'disaster' and 'disruptive' written all over it.

I just ran an excel on construction crews and...****. 35 guys WIPEOUT the operating gross profit EBITDA for the place I used to work at. Just think - 35 illegals, all have massive extended families getting 'free healthcare' and the insurance would be ALL worker+family $700++/mo and the owner now working for $40k. Liberals would say it's good for society, but the owner will decide what is best for him is to go sit on a beach and close up shop.



Off to bed. My head hurts. This is just so stupid...

Does this 30hrs/wk address only hourly employees, or does it include salaried? And if not, how long before it does? And if it does, then all marginal salaried employees become hourly for < 30 hrs/wk. If they're not released outright. More individual wage losses there.

A bright spot MIGHT be that some additional heads will be hired at < 30 hrs/wk to pick up the slack.

IF these < 30 people are lucky this move will be deflationary and their fewer dollars will go farther. That is, if we manage to stay out of a recession.

And of course if these people have any debt... like new car loans?... then they're nailed again.

Jdu--most salaried managers already have the min amount of coverage required by obamacare so I don't think that will be much of an issue. Still will hurt at the margin.

How much does lost productivity play into this for the small business? A large corporation for Target the employees are pretty much interchangeable. But at a small business the loss in productivity in having two employees do one job (a few extra minutes per shift for them to "get going", difference in individuals work patterns, etc). Then add the extra paperwork/management of having another employee. I owned a micro business (so would be exempt) but I'd think when your in the 50+ employee range this would still be another drag on your margins (which are already getting pummeled).

WTF are all you Negative Nellies carping about?

Everyone complains about being underpaid and overworked. Well, soon enough they'll just be underpaid. Win!

Besides, all the brainiacs of the 50's said we wouldn't know how to fill all our leisure time. They just forgot to mention we'd have no money to enjoy it.

Ben,

I already said in a previous post, that I had a friend who is a CEO of a large company. Supermarket chains that are union can still go to 28 hours. Just sayin.

Oh, and this will give the cash-rich, or those with access to credit, like Ms. Mack (http://tickerforum.org/akcs-www?singlepo.... thanks Harrisonact), another shot at picking up cheap assets again as people are forced to sell.

Black market here we come. I love it.

That's right.

There's gonna be more than a few smaller places that pay their employees in two forms. A check for 29 hours, and cash(at a higher hourly rate) for the other 11 hours.

" Supermarket chains that are union can still go to 28 hours. "
" A check for 29 hours, and cash(at a higher hourly rate) for the other 11 hours."

Great observation, both.

Or a lot of 49-employee small businesses.

Yeah, but the rules are written so that if one person controls many businesses they are pooled wrt the rules, so setting up 3 divisions of 49 each won't work.

But limiting your staff to 49? Definitely. People do that now as the increased costs and compliances destroy all of the new revenue and then some.

Doesn't France have laws like this? I recall them facing riots when the government tried to relax the hours/firing laws not too long ago.