The 10 Best Part-Time Jobs

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Mar 25, 6:21AM EDT

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The government calls them “people who are employed part time for economic reasons.” In other words, these people want full-time jobs, but cannot get them. More than seven million Americans fell into the category in February, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). By another definition, which is people who work less than 35 hours a week, 27 million people work part-time. Despite the fewer hours worked, there are some part-time jobs that not only pay fairly well, but are also in sectors of the economy in which the job base is expected to grow.

Some of the positions that CareerCast identifies as the “Best Part-Time and Temporary Jobs” pay much better than full-time ones — at least by the hour. Accountants make $30.55 an hour, its study claims, based on BLS data. Moving machine operators make $25.60. However, some of the jobs do not pay much better than Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT). Hotel desk clerks make $9.78 an hour. Bartenders do worse at $9.09 an hour. CareerCast does not say how many of them get tips. And, for people who prize insurance and benefits, these hourly jobs are highly unlikely to provide them. That may be very good for the employers financially, which is why a part-time worker base is attractive when the economy is slow.

The growth rate among the jobs, measured by expectations of increases through 2022, also varies substantially. The number of construction managers is expected to grow by 16% by 2022. The number of customer services representatives is expected to rise 13% over the same period. However, the numbers of workers in some job categories on the CareerCast list are barely expected to grow at all between now and 2022. The number of shipping and receiving clerk jobs is expected to increase by only 1%, and moving machine operators by the same amount.

Here are the 10 best part-time jobs, according to CareerCast:

1. Accountant
> BLS Median Hourly Wage: $30.55
> Projected Growth by 2022: 13%

2. Bartender
> BLS Median Hourly Wage: $9.09
> Projected Growth by 2022: 12%

3. Construction Manager
> BLS Median Hourly Wage: $39.80
> Projected Growth by 2022: 16%

4. Customer Service Representative
> BLS Median Hourly Wage: $14.70
> Projected Growth by 2022: 13%

5. Delivery Service Driver
> BLS Median Hourly Wage: $14.13
> Projected Growth by 2022: 5%

6. First Line Retail Supervisor
> BLS Median Hourly Wage: $17.70
> Projected Growth by 2020: 4%

7. Graphic Designer
> BLS Median Hourly Wage: $21.22
> Projected Growth by 2022: 7%

8. Hotel, Motel and Resort Desk Clerk
> BLS Median Hourly Wage: $9.78
> Projected Growth by 2022: 2%

9. Material Moving Machine Operator
> BLS Median Hourly Wage: $25.60
> Projected Growth by 2022: 1%

10. Shipping, Receiving and Traffic Clerk
> BLS Median Hourly Wage: $13.95
> Projected Growth by 2022: 1%

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.