More Americans are turning to second jobs as the holidays approach and inflation rates continue to soar, making many pinch pennies.
A new jobs report for October from the Labor Department showed that the percent of Americans working a part-time job on top of their full time job rose six percent from one year ago.
That number equals out to 4.5 million individuals overall.
Additionally, employers added 261,000 new jobs last month. The number is the lowest since December 2020, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Unemployment numbers currently hover around 3.7 percent, up .2 percent from September.
‘The unemployment rate has been in a narrow range of 3.5 percent to 3.7 percent since March,’ the jobs report for October said.
Wage gains were up month to month, but overall, were in October ticked up from the previous month. On an annual basis, however, wage gains have cooled off.
A recent survey done by Prudential Financial showed that more than eight in 10 Gen-Z and more than three quarters of millennial workers said they either have or were considering to take on a second job.
The Wall Street Journal spoke with one man, Antonio Torres, 29, who took on an additional job washing dishes and like cooking to supplement some extra income.
‘I had to do what I had to do to not fall behind,’ Torres told the publication.
The man said he has worked full time as an asphalt paver for six years and this is the first time he has had to add a second stream of income to make ends meet.
He told the outlet that the extra job brings in $200 extra each week.
A survey conducted by Qualtrics of 1,000 full-time employees found that nearly 40 percent had already started looking for a full time job and another 14 percent were planning to do so.
‘With budgets tightening, workers are searching for ways to meet the rising cost of living, including finding new jobs,’ said Qualtrics Chief Workplace Psychologist Dr. Benjamin Granger in an interview with ABC.
In September, 7.8 million Americans were reported to have been working more than one job.
Additionally, 440,000 Americans were working two full-time jobs in August. That number is up significantly from 308,000 in February of 2020.
Additionally, more white-collar workers are also looking to second jobs amid the high inflation rates and increasingly expensive cost of living.
Jennifer Knippenberg with Kelly Services Inc. told the Wall Street Journal that just one in 100 white collar workers were looking for a second job in the past.
That number has risen astronomically, now at one in 30.
Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky also recently said his company has seen an increase in the number of people renting out their homes. He attributed the rise to the uncertainty in the economy.
Research from Zippia showed that some of the most popular second jobs include driving for services like Uber and Lyft, renting out their homes and apartments, waiting tables and bartending, tutoring, and mystery shopping.
‘Just like during the Great Recession in 2008 when [Airbnb launched], people today are especially interested in earning extra income through hosting,’ Chesky said last month.
‘As the economy slows down, I think people are looking for more ways to make either supplemental income or a greater yield on the assets they have,’ he added, ‘so whether it’s second homes or primary homes, I think there is going to be a pretty big opportunity for us.’
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi echoed Chesky’s statements during a recent earnings call where she said seven in 10 driver say ‘that one of the considerations of their signing up to drive on Uber was inflation.’
Khosrowshahi said that the income earned on the transportation app ‘helps them afford their groceries, be more comfortable in an environment where real wages are fairly weak as it relates to the inflationary environment.’
The rest is here: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11401165/Cash-strapped-Americans-hit-high-inflation-turning-second-jobs-supplement-incomes.html
Second jobs? I’m pretty sure people are way past that point these days. With the way inflation levels are off the charts, I’m pretty sure they have THREE jobs now.