Obamacare is encouraging restaurants to replace full time jobs with part time jobs

The Orlando Sentinel reports:

In an experiment apparently aimed at keeping down the cost of health-care reform, Orlando-based Darden Restaurants has stopped offering full-time schedules to many hourly workers in at least a few Olive Gardens, Red Lobsters and LongHorn Steakhouses…

… many other companies, including the White Castle hamburger chain, are considering employing fewer full-timers because of key features of the Affordable Care Act scheduled to go into effect in 2014. Under that law, large companies must provide affordable health insurance to employees working an average of at least 30 hours per week. If they do not, the companies can face fines of up to $3,000 for each employee…

“I think a lot of those employers, especially restaurants, are just going to ensure nobody gets scheduled more than 30 hours a week,” said Matthew Snook, partner with human-resources consulting company Mercer…

At a new Olive Garden in Stillwater, Okla., former busboy Keaton Hasty said employees were routinely limited to 29 1/2 hours. “It was 29 1/2, and they’d kick you out,” said Hasty, a college student who now works at a pharmacy. “They’d always print off a little slip every day and say who was getting close.”