Another follow-up on the delayed September jobs report that finally came out last week: The report showed a stronger-than-expected monthly gain of 119,000 jobs, seasonally adjusted. But that doesn’t necessarily mean 119,000 more people employed in this economy.
The headline job gains were decent, said Ali Bustamante, economist at the University of New Orleans. But digging deeper, “Nearly all of those jobs that we gained were coming from just two places,” Bustamante said.
One was health care, which has been growing for a while. And the other, perhaps surprisingly, given consumer wariness, was restaurants. Bustamante said, when hiring in other sectors is flat or falling, “This jump in restaurant hiring usually means that we’re in a loose, sluggish economy where workers are really just trying to, you know, stitch things together,” said Bustamante.
As in, stitching jobs together. Luke Pardue, with the Aspen Economic Strategy Group, said nearly 5.5% of workers have more than one gig right now. That number has been growing for years.
“It ticked down during the pandemic and has been pretty consistently rising, almost back to the level that we saw in 2008 now,” Pardue said.
Pardue said the rise in workers doubling up is partly because of slowing wage gains.
“A worker in the tech sector might have felt very confident a few years ago that they could negotiate for a wage gain,” Pardue said. “And now that confidence is sort of lost.”
To the point that, they might want to pick up some extra cash on the side, restaurant work can be good for that. This could help explain why unemployment in September ticked up. A lot of the new jobs went to people who are already employed.
“People are a little anxious about their future job prospects, even if they’re currently full-time,” said Lonnie Golden, a labor economist at Penn State.
Golden said nabbing a second job can be a hedge if you’re worried you might lose your first.