Working Multiple Jobs

in Careers economy by Margo Smith — April 1, 2010 at 2:04 pm | 0 comments

Working multiple jobs can be tiring and bring on major stress. But the recession means that fewer people have jobs and many incomes are lower. So as a result, overqualified people have had to take any job or jobs that they can, which means that many individuals work a few hours here and a few hours there to try and earn enough money to scrape by.
Mary Beth Sammons is one example of that.
She was vice-president at an internet company and made $110,000 for a 50 hour work week but she lost her job so and she now works two part time jobs. For 60 hours of work she makes $50,000. Sammons said, “I laugh to my friends that I successfully learned how to slice my salary by more than half but I’m working more hours.”

Sammons lost her job like thousands of Americans but she was lucky enough to find enough work to pay most of her bills. On the other hand, many haven’t been as fortunate. Approximately 7 million Americans work two or more jobs according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And most do it to pay the bills or maintain their standard of living. And the hours and work aren’t the only difficult thing, they also have to try and balance their personal and social life as well.

Eileen Applebaum a professor at Rutgers University said that “Many more women than at any time in our history are either the primary or sole breadwinner in their families. The persistent pay gap between men and women and the greater incidence of part-time work for women means that women are more likely to need more than one job just to make ends meet for their families.”

So today more than ever women are trying to provide and that means that more women are fighting over the jobs in the sectors women generally dominate in like education and health. And more women are looking for any job they can since the recession led to the loss of high paying jobs in traditionally male sectors. This places more pressure on women to provide, and many need more than one job because they earn less than a male doing the same job.

But a major problem facing individuals with two jobs is that many miss out on the benefits that come along with full time jobs. So women are in lower end jobs that don’t typically give health insurance or paid sick time so if anything happens they could easily lose their jobs but one nice thing about multiple jobs is that if individuals lose one job they’ll still bring in some income with the other one. However, working multiple jobs can be extremely challenging and stressful for any anyone.

Tags: Careers economy and jobs economy and recession multiple jobs overqualified workers working