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Stephen Gilliam works 40 hours per week as a graphic designer for a authorities contractor.
Within the night, Gilliam comes residence, eats dinner and takes just a little break. He then opens his laptop computer and works on freelance initiatives designing film posters. He often tries to wrap up by 10 p.m., will get some sleep after which begins it all around the subsequent day.
“There are good and dangerous weeks, however I do my greatest to attempt to discover that steadiness,” mentioned 45-year-old Gilliam, who lives in Augusta, Georgia.
Gilliam, who earned his bachelor’s diploma in graphic design from the Artwork Institute of Atlanta, is considered one of tens of millions of employees with a faculty schooling who’re taking up a number of jobs, a development referred to as “overemployment.”
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These employees are choosing up a number of jobs for a lot of causes. Some are pursuing new alternatives to advance or shift their careers. For others, it is on account of monetary want given greater costs, stagnant wages and different financial considerations, based on consultants.
The February jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics discovered {that a} record-high 8.9 million Individuals reported working a number of jobs, representing 5.4% of all employed employees — a charge not seen since April 2009, in the course of the Nice Recession.
In response to new evaluation of overemployed employees by the Federal Reserve Financial institution of St. Louis, the share of a number of jobholders with a school diploma elevated to 50.2% in 2024, up from 50.0% in 2023. The share was 48.6% in 2020, and 45.1% in 2019. The findings are based mostly on information from the Present Inhabitants Survey.
However the monetary advantages may be slim: Overemployed Individuals had an annual common earnings of $57,865, barely greater than these with one job, at $56,965, the Fed discovered.
‘A fairly complicated phenomenon’
Working a number of jobs “is a reasonably complicated phenomenon,” mentioned Julia Pollak, chief economist at ZipRecruiter.
On one hand, the development may be pushed by alternative, Pollak mentioned.
Versatile, distant jobs could lend themselves to a aspect hustle, she mentioned. For instance, somebody who works in a management and administration function may also be paid for talking engagements or consulting work.
“However it’s also pushed by necessity,” Pollak mentioned.
Folks might have a second job to complement earnings to cowl bills, repay debt, save for the longer term, or pursue a special profession path whereas sustaining a main earnings, consultants say.
Wages typically haven’t saved up with inflation and necessities like housing prices, mentioned licensed monetary planner Carolyn McClanahan, founding father of Life Planning Companions in Jacksonville, Florida.
You need to “work quite a bit tougher to make ends meet,” mentioned McClanahan, a member of CNBC’s Monetary Advisor Council.
“If you are going to attempt to have some semblance of a conventional life with children, and a home and transportation, [it] takes some huge cash to do this,” McClanahan mentioned.
Overemployment may additionally assist individuals cobble collectively sufficient work hours as some employers reduce. The common workweek for all workers on non-public nonfarm payrolls was 34.1 hours in February, unchanged from the month prior, however down from 34.2 in December and 34.3 in February 2024, the BLS discovered.
“If employers are seeing comfortable demand for labor and slicing hours, that is one more reason why individuals are taking up extra jobs to fill the week and to fill their financial institution accounts,” Pollak mentioned.
