Survey: 29% of American Workers Have Side Jobs

As we pointed out a few weeks ago, there's been a flurry of studies lately on the gig economy.

So many we're having a hard time keeping up and reporting on them all. 

So we're just getting to a survey on side gigs that CareerBuilder released in September. Key quote from the survey press release:

According to a new CareerBuilder survey, 29 percent of workers have a side hustle, a trend that is especially strong among the millennial demographic. Forty-four percent of those ages 25-34 and 39 percent of those 18-24 have a side gig, compared to 29 percent of those 35-44, 22 percent of those 45-54 and 19 percent of those ages 55 and older.

Workers of all income levels are taking on side work. Nearly 1 in 5 workers making more than $75k (18 percent) and 12 percent of those making more than $100k currently have a gig gigs outside of their full time job. This is compared to a third of workers making below $50k (34 percent) and 34 percent earning below $35k.

As the chart below shows, while lower income workers are more likely to have side gigs, even about 18% of those making more than $75,000 per year and 12% of those making more than $100,000 per year have side gigs.

The 29% side gig rate is a substantially higher than what the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports. They say only 5% of workers have multiple jobs.

But as we've said multiple time in the past, the BLS numbers are wrong. The CareerBuilder survey is simply yet another of many studies illustrating this.

Unfortunately it seems unlikely the BLS is going to change their view on this anytime soon. While they've announced they are doing an alternative work survey in May of 2017, they are not planning on asking questions about side gigs. 

This means their current approach - which clearly does not work - will continue to be used.

The reasons this is a big deal are:

1. it means the BLS will again substantially under count the number of people working in the gig economy.
2. the rise of side gigs, which has clearly happened, will continue to be discounted in policy circles.
3. the debates about the future of work will continue to be based in part on bad information.

We'd recommend you write to congress on this, but it won't do any good. The bureaucrats in Washington have already decided on this path.