I work part time in a large retail store (yeah, I know, oh god, do I know). Since a couple months ago, I've been steadily getting less and less hours. Supposedly, the store isn't doing well and everyone is getting cut. As of now, I really only work half shifts.

Today, however, I find out that my department has two new people, and they are almost close to full time (32 hours). Im not sure what this means, but I've been getting suspicious. Its not a huge deal, since Im quitting in a month or so, but am I completely unjustified in wondering what the frak is going on?

I'd be wondering what the frak is going on as well.

I was hired as a contractor to work for an IT outsourcing company in England in 1998, as part of a big international hiring campaign. There were people working for the company who hadn't had any work to do in months and months. Suddenly contractors were turning up and being given work to do, work which the existing employees could have done at least as well, while the existing employees were still turning up for work every day with nothing to do except chat, drink coffee, smoke, or pretend to work. When some of these employees, who had been asking their managers for work to do for some time and been told that there was none, asked their managers what was going on, they were told: "we are paying so much money for these new hires that we HAVE to give them work to do".

Sometimes privately run companies make no sense.

they are probably getting less wage

How ironic when the contemporary philosophy is that government agencies need to be run more like private companies because of the chronic government fiscal problems (good example: Wisconsin, USA).  True deficits are certainly a problem but there are winners and losers.  I guess it goes to show that not all private companies are prudent with their money.  With government agencies though it's taxper money that funds this kind of activity and it won't go well with the public; especially when the public taxpayer in general is struggling to make ends meet, hold on to what they have, etc. (hence the reason for chronic government revenue shortfalls because of erosion of the tax base as private sector jobs are outsourced elsewhere.)

Check local labour laws.  Where I live there is a minimum 4 hours for a shift.  If you work less than 4 hrs, you have to get paid for 4 hrs.  You might also be eligible for unemployment insurance if your hours are cut drastically.  Being "laid off" due to lack of work, your company cannot legally hire people to do the same job as you.  They are cheating the government unemployment then.  

Often older or long term employees are let go and contractors or agency people are sent in.  They do not get paid benefits etc.  

They could also be doing types of work that original employees were not hired to do.   For example I could be hired to do data entry and if then I was asked to move boxes in the warehouse I could refuse or be injured doing that type of work.  Most of the time I would be happy to help out if business was slow but I have been in the situation where I was expected to do the work that two people did before and then added another job which I protested that I had no training to do.  Later they tried to fire me for being "incompetent".  They could only lay me off.  

In the case of the store, when you finish working there do not shop at that store anymore.  Also tell all your friends and neighbours about how they treat long time employees and ask them not to shop there.  What loyalty do they deserve from customers if they treat their employees and people looking for work badly?

Actually,they are only obliged to give you the hours you are contracted to work. Retail businesses often work on the basis of giving lots of people part-time contracts so that they can guarantee having people who want to come in when they need people, but will never have to pay high redundancy payouts when they don't need people.

Today, two people from my department cornered me and demanded to know my schedule, even though its printed up at the front were anyone can see it. I've been wondering if these people aren't trying to mess with me. Anyway, I've already applied to a couple other places, and will very likely quit if one of them go through.

It seems there's a time limit on how long I can work any job before they outright try to get rid of me. Is this true for anyone else?

Probably you are not the only one who is having the scheduling problem by the other workers cornering you.  Just tell them to look at the schedule and you were wondering if other people were getting less hours too.  Likely there were be some big "performance review" and people will be laid off.  

I had a friend who was called in for a "performance review".  She was told that she was not working to the standard of everyone else.  It was just a ruse.  Later she was laid off, new supervisor.  The next day one of the other worker called her and told her that everyone was laid off in the department, not just her.  She thought she was the only one.  

I got hired by one fast food place that never even called me in for one shift.   I quit after a few weeks.   Some other people I knew that were hired at the same time told me that was the same only they never got one shift in several months.  The manager thought he might be busy so he hired people just in case others quit.  

Workers are considered disposable.  Employers want loyalty but never show it to others - or even care.

I actually think that cutting hours for everyone (and thus paying less in total but the same pro-rata) is the fairest way to make cuts, rather than "selective firing" (and hey, guess who they will choose to fire? Yes, the aspies).

What should happen is that staff who don't want to work in these conditions will naturally choose to leave, and then they can increase the hours of those who remain again. So self-selective rather than being shown the door.

Although not exactly relevant to this string, I can say something in response to this post.

I beleive that throughout the ages, if somebody within a group had to be a "sacrificial lamb", it was probably almost always the Aspie of the group (if there was an Aspie in the group).  The larger the group to draw from, the more likely there'd be an Aspie to pick.  In small groups where there was no Aspie but (for whatver reason) a sacrificial lamb was necessary, there'd probably be alot more fighing and "backstabbing" until the one who ended up with the least favorable ranking was chosen.

In ancient, pagan, superstitious cultures; more often than not; it was probably the Aspie who was chosen to be sacrificed (and suffer a slow and agonizing death) in order to appease the gods; hoping for better crops next season; to avoid natural disasters, etc. (avoid wrath of the gods).

Now let's consider the Donner party.  During approximately the 1840's, there was a conestoga wagon train convoy of wannabes who wanted to make it to California.  The party; originating from the midwest (I beleive it was Illinois) started out with alot of people, horses and dogs.  The wagon train party made it past present day Utah and well into Nevada.  It was in the Sierra Nevada when a wrong turn was made and then winter set in.  The Donner party was trapped by a blizzard, and after that it was just not possible to travel because of winter conditions.

People first died of illnesses; precipated and aggravated by the bad weather conditions.  There was no food after the food stocks ran out and those that remained alive could not go looking for food.  The remaining members of the Donner party killed their dogs and horses for food as it became necessary.  Eventually there were no domestic animals left to kill.  So the Donner party had to resort to cannibalism.

Well if there was a surviving Aspie in the Donner party; guess who probably got chosen.  These care just my thoughts.

I would rather get cut, get my unemployment and find a better job than get hours cut back and back so that when I do apply for unemployment, I would not have enough hours to qualify.