Cost crunch forces record number of Aussies into multiple jobs

Australians are still feeling cost-of-living pressures with the number of workers needing a second job on the rise.

Fresh figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows 973,000 Australians hold multiple jobs as of the September quarter.

This was a 2.2 per cent increase from June, when there were 952,000 workers who held roles with multiple employers.

AMP chief economist Shane Oliver told NewsWire this could be a sign cost-of-living pressures remain.

“Most people don’t want to have multiple jobs, so it might be a sign that cost-of-living pressures are still impacting (workers),” Dr Oliver said.

“That also lines up with other evidence. For example, consumer spending – it is a bit subdued when there is no discounting going on, but when we had Black Friday or End of Financial Year sales suddenly we are spending again.”

The bulk of these people working in multiple jobs were women or younger Australians.

In the past five years, on average, the multiple job-holding rate among women has been about 1.9 percentage points higher than men.

Employed people aged 20-24 were more likely to have multiple jobs in September 2025.

Australians working in administrative and supportive services as their main gig were the most likely to have a second job.

The spike in multiple job holdings remains since the Covid pandemic when the number of Australians working in two or more jobs bounced.

Historically, multiple jobs rates have been between 5 to 6 per cent.

But following a massive decline in Covid, multiple jobs rose to a historic high of between 6.4 and 6.7 per cent.

It has remained at this elevated rate for the past three years.

Dr Oliver said while he expected some of the cost-of-living pressures had eased thanks to tax cuts last year, three interest rate cuts in 2025 and rising wages, he said overall Australians were still going backwards.

“The underlying reality is that over the last five years prices are up 21 per cent while wages are only up 16 per cent, so people are still behind where they were a few years back,” he said.

“If the cost-of-living situation had corrected itself and is back to a scenario where wages have kept up over the last five years then I suspect multiple job holdings would have headed back towards pre-Covid levels at least in terms of the job holdings rate.

“We are not seeing that yet.”

On the other hand, Dr Oliver also pointed out multiple jobs could also be a sign of relative strength in the labour market if employers needed to rely on employees working in multiple jobs.

Currently the Australian unemployment rate is 4.3 per cent, which remains around a historically low figure.

“It is still a reasonably solid jobs market so there’s still plenty of jobs out there but people are taking those jobs because they are struggling to some degree,” Dr Oliver said.

“It is not normal that people take two jobs; they usually only do that if they have to”.