August 29, 2000 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Part-timers earn more in some health care jobs

Although in most occupations, part-time workers earn less per hour than their full-time counterparts, in some health care occupations part-timers actually have higher average hourly earnings.

Ratio of part-time to full-time hourly earnings, selected health-related occupations, National Compensation Survey, 1997
[Chart data—TXT]

In all of the occupations shown in the chart, the average hourly earnings of part-time workers exceeds that of full-timers. In these occupations, the ratio of hourly earnings of part-time workers to full-time workers ranges from 1.51 for physicians to 1.02 for registered nurses. For the other occupations in the chart, the ratios generally are closer to the nurses’ ratio than to the physicians’—for example, speech therapists and occupational therapists both have ratios around 1.2.

These data on earning of part-time workers are the products of the National Compensation Survey. Read more in "Part-time Workers’ Earnings: Some Comparisons" (PDF 120K), by Jerome E. King, Compensation and Working Conditions, Summer 2000.

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