A job too far? The problem of the multi-gig professional
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
The writer is CEO of Meredith Whitney Advisory Group
News that Wells Fargo fired employees for “simulation of keyboard activity” this year has struck a nerve among employers and employees. To bosses, it provided confirmation of long-held suspicions that those working from home were often less committed and less productive than those in the office. To workers, it confirmed long-held suspicions that their employers were using surveillance to monitor them.
In fact, I believe the news speaks to a more profound trend affecting the US labour force and consumer spending: the increase in professionals who are working multiple full-time jobs.
Since the pandemic lockdown, there has been a dramatic shift towards college-educated, younger professionals holding down multiple jobs. According to my analysis of official data, at least 4mn people with college degrees have more than one job, up from 2.4mn in the years before the pandemic. I believe that this could still be an underestimation.
There is a direct correlation between the spike in higher-paid college graduates working multiple jobs and the rise of remote work. Before the Covid-19 lockdown in 2020, less than 5 per cent of US employees worked from home. That shot up to more than 60 per cent during the lockdown and, after two years, settled to around 30 per cent, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis, slightly higher than it is today.
At the same time, new products have been created to help employees evade monitoring by employers while using their work computer. A “Mouse Jiggler”, purchased on Amazon for just $7.50, can be timed so that workers are able to look busy while not actually being active. This can free them up to work on another employer’s laptop.
While businesses still frown on the idea and often have written policies forbidding it, it has become far easier for well-paid workers to hold down multiple full-time roles. The threat of losing employment then becomes far less scary if it is just one of two gigs or more. While having to report to an office every day would make juggling this challenging to pull off, remote work makes it possible.
Overall, 8mn US workers have multiple jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. While the total number of workers holding down more than one role has not changed much over the past 30 years, the demographic has.
Before 1994, just over 30 per cent of those working multiple jobs were college graduates. After the pandemic that number then jumped to 50 per cent and has stayed at this level ever since.
It is also very possible that the number of college-educated workers with more than one full-time job could be understated: not all high-paid employees will own up to working multiple jobs, partly due to fear of being found out by one or all of their employers.
While it has long been acceptable for low-paid workers to have multiple jobs, it has been against most corporate policies, written or unwritten, for high-paid employees to do so. This is where the friction in US employment is growing.
Until the past year, more employers were willing to acquiesce to the desire of staff to work remotely. Now, however, more are demanding that they spend at least three, if not five, days in the office.
Earlier this year, IBM announced to employees that if they did not live close to an office, they would no longer have a job by August. Last year, Amazon chief executive Andy Jassy was reported to have said that if workers did not want to come into the office, then Amazon might not be the right company for them.
Google, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley are among the other companies that now require employees to return to the office.
This has also been a not-so-subtle way for companies to cull employees who are not fully committed. Indeed, having to be visible in person means that those employees who are working multiple full-time jobs will have to choose between one employer and another. Eventually this could have an impact on levels of employment, though it will take time before the full extent of this is revealed.
Within the technology sector, there have been more than 300,000 lay-offs announced since 2022, yet monthly jobless claims have not budged and the unemployment rate has stayed low. In the most recent jobs data, the number of US workers in their prime working years — aged between 25 and 54 — with multiple jobs increased by more than 9 per cent since May 2023. This is higher than the rate of all workers with multiple jobs. It seems workers aren’t reverting to keeping just one job after the loss of a second, rather they are replacing the lost second job with a new second job.
One benefit of this over-employment trend could be more robust spending. Ask any credit card company from American Express to Bank of America, Gen Zs and millennials are spending at a growth rate of 5:1 against boomers. This may have helped the US to avoid recession after the Covid stimulus ran out.
I suspect Wells Fargo’s headline is far from the end of the tug of war between employers and employees over remote work. As for now, the odds favour the employers.
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