Jay Pellis is among the thousands of South Floridians who are underemployed. After 18 months of being counted among the unemployed, that's improvement. This week, Pellis began a part-time job teaching GED classes to teenagers and young adults leaving the foster care system. It is the type of work he's done before.
The definition of being underemployed has nothing to do with one's qualifications or even ability. It has to do with availability and desire. To be considered underemployed by government statisticians, one has to want to work full-time, be available to work full-time but only successful in finding part-time work. That's Jay Pellis of Coral Springs.
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While hundreds of thousands of jobs have been created nationwide since the Great Recession began, the number of people able to find only part-time work stood at 2.7 million in August. That number has been climbing in recent months.
And when the data for September is collected, Pellis will be among them.
