ACA Causing Few Employers to Downsize or Reduce Hours for Part-Time Workers, SHRM Survey Finds

Author: Michael Cardman, XpertHR Legal Editor

March 24, 2015

WASHINGTON, DC -- The vast majority of employers are neither reducing the number of employees nor reducing the number of hours employees work as a result of the Affordable Care Act, according to a new survey released today by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).

Only 5% of the 700-plus HR professionals polled by SHRM said their organizations had already reduced the number of employees or planned to do so in the future.

About 20% of those responding said their organizations had reduced or planned to reduce working hours for part-time employees. Even fewer, only 3%, said they had reduced working hours for full-time employees or planned to do so.

Among the organizations that had reduced or planned to reduce employees' working hours, survey respondents reported that an average of 19% of employees were or would be affected.

Other noteworthy findings from the survey include:

  • From 2014 to 2015, health care costs increased for 77% of respondents' organizations, stayed the same for 17% and decreased for 6%;
  • The proportion of employers that require employees to work at least 30 hours each week has risen by 15 percentage points in the past two years, from 39% in 2013 to 54% in 2015;
  • The main barriers to implementation most frequently identified by respondents were the complexity of the ACA (41%, unchanged since 2013), a lack of understanding of the law's details and its impact on organizations (16%, down sharply from 27% in 2013) and the cost of implementing the law (14%, also unchanged); and
  • To avoid the excise tax (a 40% tax on health care premiums that exceed the Cadillac Plan thresholds established by the ACA), 24% of organizations are conducting analyses and exploring different health care options, and 9% of organizations have already made changes to their health plans.