Cost-of-living pressures sees Aussies take on a | Australian Markets

The post-Covid growth within the quantity of Aussies working a number of jobs continues as larger value of residing pressures means more staff are taking on a second gig.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics knowledge reveals that within the March quarter there have been 963,100 Aussies – or 6.5 per cent of the workforce – who had more than one job.

While that is truly down from the earlier quarter the place 999,500 Australians held a number of jobs, it’s nonetheless a sharp uptick in staff seeking to diversify their incomes in contrast with the years previous to Covid, the place round 5 to six per cent of Aussies took on a second gig.

Seek senior economist Blair Chapman mentioned the spike in cost-of-living pressures from inflation meant more Australians needed to take on further work.

“We’ve really seen cost-of-living, especially for employee households, increase quite a lot over the last couple of years,” he mentioned.

“If you’ve got a mortgage, those repayments have increased quite a bit over the last couple of years so I suspect people have sought a second job just to reach the higher cost of living recently.”

Australians are holding onto their second job regardless of the general unemployment charge holding firm in latest months, across the 4.1 per cent mark.

The foremost driving power behind this pattern is underemployment which means staff are getting fewer hours from their major employer than they’d like.

“We are seeing more people being employed in industries where we tend to see a lot of multiple job holdings,” Mr Chapman mentioned.

“For example, we’ve seen healthcare and social assistance grow and that is one of the industries where multiple job holdings are most common.

“That comes down to the nature of the work, where you have shift work and one business may not be able to provide all the hours an employee wants so the individual has to work across multiple sites to get the hours they are desiring.”

Many of these a number of job holders are Australians aged between 20-24, with girls more more likely to maintain a second position over males.

In distinction older Australians aged between 60 to 64 are the least more likely to maintain a second position.

“When we look at a lot of the multiple job holders, they tend to be younger. Maybe it is a university aged person who can’t work full-time but can work nights and weekends,” Mr Chapman mentioned.

“While maybe it is not the same job but for them it is probably good they can work multiple jobs with flexible hours.”