Time-Related Underemployment

Time-related underemployment, when the working time of persons in employment is insufficient in relation to alternative employment situations in which they are willing and available to engage.

Depending on the working time concept applied, among persons in time-related underemployment (i.e. who wanted and were “available” to work “additional hours”), it is possible to identify the following groups:

• (a) persons whose hours usually and actually worked were below the “hours threshold”;
• (b) persons whose hours usually worked were below the “hours threshold” but whose hours actually worked were above the threshold;
• (c) persons “not at work” or whose hours actually worked were below the “hours threshold” due to economic reasons (e.g. a reduction in economic activity including temporary lay-off and slack work or the effect of the low or off season).

In order to separately identify the three groups of persons in time-related underemployment, information is needed on both hours usually worked and hours actually worked. Countries using only one working time concept will cover, for hours usually worked, the sum of groups (a) and (b); for hours actually worked, the group (c), so long as the reasons for being “not at work” or for working below the “hours threshold” are also collected.

Resolution I. Resolution concerning statistics of work, employment and labour underutilization, the 19 ICLS