Why are so many workers holding multiple jobs?

There are still a lot of U.S. workers holding down multiple jobs — about one in every 20, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s fallen a fraction of a percent since last fall, when we saw the highest rate since 1999.

Back in ‘99, we were living in the moment before the dot-com bubble burst.

“We were spending a lot more time talking about the fact that we have increased levels of automation, what that means for job-holders,” said economist Nicole Smith at Georgetown University.

Sound familiar? Today, it’s all about AI replacing entry-level jobs and forcing young people to piece together side hustles.

“A lot of people are combining their primary job with the gig economy, like DoorDash, and Uber, and freelance work,” she said.

There’s also a simpler reason why more people are working multiple jobs: More jobs mean more money, according to Cory Stahle, an economist with Indeed Hiring Lab.

“And I don't think there's any coincidence, with the cost of a lot of different things going up and inflation — obviously, we saw that rise,” he said.

With the price increases resulting from the war in Iran, Stahle said the pressure to get another job might increase. “In the last 12 months, real wages only went up by like 0.1%. So essentially, real wages haven't changed. But clearly, just in the last few weeks, the price of gasoline has.”

In the past four months, the percentage of people who work multiple jobs had started to inch downward, but Stahle said he’ll be watching to see whether stubborn inflation and rising oil prices reverse that.