Involuntary part-time: The new layoffs?

Interesting story today in the New York Times about how many companies are cutting worker hours rather than cutting workers with outright layoffs.

The reasons? Employers have to pay fewer health care costs for part-timers. And, computer skills of all things are a huge factor.

Stringing people along with a little bit of a job keeps them available to come back to work if/when times get better, and it works better for a company because then they don't have to train a brand new hire in advanced and/or company-specific computer skills.

You have to read kinda deep into the story to find that and other good "why" info.

The computer skills reason might sound like something for just the high-tech sector to consider at first, but I know even the cash register at the local diner would confuse me for awhile. (It's a computer, too, most likely).

A lot of people already complain about the lack of a "living" wage in America. Particularly in York County, it comes in the form of higher-paying manufacturing jobs leaving, with lower-paying retail jobs becoming an alternative.

Do you know anyone who has had hours slashed because of the economy? Is it better or worse for employees to get hour reductions as opposed to just getting let go?