It turns out that having one job doesn’t always make ends meet.
Millennial employees across America are taking on second jobs — more commonly called “side hustles” — to pay their regular bills each month, according to the latest research.
Nearly four in ten Americans have a side hustle, and they earn about $700 a month on average from these second jobs, according to a recent survey from Bankrate. But for Millennials, the numbers are even higher. More than half of Millennial employees are partaking in the gig economy, reaping extra income from their efforts, according to the survey.
Kathy Kristof, an award-winning financial writer who runs the site $ideHusl, said taking on a second job can help people save money and keep up with rising costs. $ideHusl is a website that consolidates information about various opportunities in the gig economy and scores them according to a proprietary rating system. Sample side hustle offerings featured on the side include tutoring and driving gigs as well as opportunities to take care of elderly patients, cook for families, or rent out parts of your home or even its furnishings.
The biggest appeal of a side job, Kristof said, is the money.
“With Millennials, I think a lot of them graduated college with a lot of debt,” Kristof said. “The Millennial generation is also extremely entrepreneurial. They’re looking for various ways that they can work for themselves, either full- or part-time. A side hustle is a good way to start.”
The Bankrate survey found that a majority of respondents considered money earned from side jobs as disposable income, and they work these odd jobs inconsistently. Only 11 percent of respondents indicate that they work their side jobs on a weekly basis.
Deloitte, a professional services network, and Prudential, a financial services company, also recently released surveys that both echoed BankRate’s survey findings as well as revealed other trends about the gig economy, including:
- Deloitte found that having flexible hours and a better work/life balance were among the top reasons for why people would consider joining the gig economy;
- On average, the Prudential survey found that gig-only workers earn only about 58 percent as much as traditional full-time employees annually, though the survey acknowledged that gig workers only put in a median of 25 hours per week, compared with a standard 40-hour work week for full-time employees;
- Fewer than 20 percent of Millennial respondents in the Deloitte survey outright rejected the idea of taking on short-term contracts or freelance work to supplement or replace existing full-time employment;
- 62 percent of Millennials in the Prudential survey believe it is somewhat or highly likely that over the next 30 years, traditional full-time employment will largely disappear, and freelance jobs will come up in its place;
- 62 percent of millennials who would consider gig employment cited a need for “increased money/income,” according to the Deloitte survey.
Kristof predicts that the gig economy will continue to grow at a rapid pace, and that America’s workforce will have an increasingly difficult challenge to differentiate between great side hustle opportunities and platforms with exploitive terms and conditions. She encourages anyone looking to get into the game to research different offerings before wasting time or putting assets at risk.
“There are gigs in almost every industry, so look for what you really like to do, because you can find something that you like and something that will pay well, all at the same time,” Kristof advised. “And that’s kind of the ideal, right?”