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- Working late nights and early mornings is essential to some jobs.
- Industries such as healthcare and food preparation often require employees to work late at night.
- Night shifts can affect childcare access and work-life balance for these workers.
Clocking in during the wee hours of the night is the norm for some industries.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ American Time Use Survey asks thousands of Americans each year how they spend their days. That data includes showing when people are at work, and in particular, can tell us what kinds of jobs are most likely to involve working outside the traditional 9-to-5 hours.
Those working in protective services, healthcare, food preparation, and production all have personnel working around the clock. While construction workers and personal care workers may have less concentrated nighttime hours, plant workers, healthcare workers, and some restaurant workers have late-night shifts.
Those working the most after midnight and before 6 a.m. are protective service workers. This includes police officers, firefighters, and security guards. At 3 a.m., the lowest percentage of protective service workers are on shift, with 11.6% of personnel working.
Some workers in roles with atypical hours previously told Business Insider that it’s a part of their job, and changing their hours would impact their career. Rochelle Cooper, a pastry chef in Silver Springs, Maryland, said she works a nine-hour shift that bleeds into the evening.
“I could potentially try to rework my schedules, so I work more daytime hours and come in earlier, but then I’m missing out on part of the role I’m doing,” Cooper said. “So I’d have to maybe scale back my salary.”
Food preparation work peaks at 1 p.m., but people work well into the night, with 3% of workers still clocked in at midnight. Cooper explained that people preparing food for the next day and cleaning up from the previous day often have late-night shifts and come in later in the morning.
Healthcare occupations, like nurses, pharmacy aides, and home health aides, often work odd hours as well. Katie Wallace, a registered nurse at a hospital in Pennsylvania, said she starts her shift at 6:45 a.m.
She works a 12-hour shift that ends after 7 p.m. and may come in earlier to complete some administrative tasks. Healthcare workers like her are still busiest during the daytime, even if 6% of those workers are still on the job at 1 a.m.
While working at night can leave your day less busy, these workers said it limits their access to childcare. Many workers are clocked in before daycares and early drop-off for schools open, leaving them with few alternatives. It can also compromise some people’s work-life balance.
Do you have a job that works odd hours? Reach out to this reporter at [email protected].
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