In a slowing labor market, even people with jobs are increasingly making do with less-than-ideal arrangements. They’re stuck in part-time positions or patching together multiple jobs to make ends meet, employment data shows.
The number of part-time workers who say they would prefer full-time positions jumped sharply in November to an eight-year high.
Meanwhile, those with multiple jobs — 5.7 percent of the workforce — is at its highest level in more than 25 years, according to monthly figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In all, a record 9.3 million Americans worked more than one job in November, a 10 percent increase from a year earlier.
The data reflects, at least partially, disruptions from the recent government shutdown, which left hundreds of thousands of Americans furloughed without pay from Oct. 1 to Nov. 12. Many of those workers — along with contractors, consultants and others who felt the ripples of the shutdown — may have picked up side jobs or part-time gigs to make up for lost pay.
But economists also point to a broader shift in Americans’ finances and rising concerns about affordability that is driving them to pick up more work. Of particular note: The number of Americans with two full-time jobs jumped by 18 percent in the past year, with women making up the bulk of that increase.
“When people start adding jobs, and certainly a second full-time job, that says something about affordability, and about needing more money to meet household expenditures,” said Laura Ullrich, director of economic research at the Indeed Hiring Lab. “In theory, yes, if people ‘want’ to have multiple jobs, and they’re able to find them, that’s a good thing. But from a human perspective, the fact that more people are working two full-time jobs is hard to think of as a positive development.”
Although federal workers received back pay when the government reopened, that wasn’t the case for its network of contractors and consultants.
Joshua Beers, a government contractor in Columbia, Maryland, took a second job delivering food for Uber Eats during the shutdown. Without his usual paychecks — or any hope of back pay — he quickly depleted his savings, and fell behind on credit card and loan payments. The $400 a week from his side hustle wasn’t much, he said, but it was enough to temporarily cover the basics.
Now, even with his full-time job back, Beers is still making deliveries, late at night and on weekends, to make up for lost income. Plus, he said, he worries about the slowing job market: His wife has been looking for work for over a year.
“The job market feels really confusing right now,” he said. “I don’t want to give up anything I can do for additional income on the side.”
The U.S. labor market has cooled markedly in the past year, with employers adding just 67,000 jobs in the past three months. (A year ago, by comparison, that number was eight times larger.) The unemployment rate, at 4.6 percent, is at a four-year high. New data Friday is expected to show further slowing in December, as employers held off on hiring.
That’s left job-seekers in a tough position. Layoffs are still relatively low in a sign that companies would rather cut expansion plans than get rid of existing workers, making it difficult for newcomers to break in.
To that end, the number of people working part-time because they couldn’t find full-time jobs has gradually picked up since 2023. The surge in November — a 62 percent increase from a year earlier — was the biggest annual jump on record, going back to 1956.
“There’s been cooling in the labor market, but the most worrisome sign on its own is a big increase in the number of people working part-time for economic reasons,” said Guy Berger, director of economic research at the Burning Glass Institute. “This is a classic barometer of underemployment, and it tends to go up when the labor market is getting worse.”
In Wisconsin, Rachel Fredrickson picked up a part-time job in retail in November, after eight months of unemployment from the manufacturing industry. Even with 14 years of experience in search engine optimization, she said it’s been impossible to find a full-time digital marketing position.
Instead, Fredrickson has been working on a sales floor for up to 20 hours a week. Now, with the holiday rush over, she’s bracing for even fewer hours.
“I’m back to having weeks where I don’t work at all,” said Frederickson, 38. “My husband and I are getting by, but we have virtually no savings left at this point.”
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