Reasons For Working Multiple Jobs

If you spend any time reading about employment and unemployment statistics online, your head will begin to spin.  There is so much data around who is out of work, who IS working, how many jobs they hold, how does this compare to last year and on and on.  I try to stay informed on the situation in two states: the state I work in (Missouri) and the state I live in (Illinois).

According to the most recent statistics from January 2010 from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in Missouri, unemployment is at 9.5% (up 1.4% from last year) and Illinois is at 11.3% (up 3.2% from last year).  At the same time, I’m hearing that many people finding themselves out of work are not only trying to find one job, but two.

Reasons people are people working multiple jobs:

• They are recently out of work and finding they have to work multiple jobs to try to maintain their standard of living
• They still have one job but fear of losing it makes them proactively take a second or third job as “security”
• They can’t make ends meet on current salary so taking multiple jobs to achieve that
• They can’t find work in their field at their level, so taking multiple lower-paying jobs to remain in the field and continue to gain experience

So, how are things in your state?  What trends are you seeing and hearing related to unemployment and people trying to find multiple jobs?  What other trends are happening where you live? Check out the Bureau of Labor Statistics table on Over-the-Year Changes in Unemployment by State, then share with us in the comments.