The rise of the side hustle
Marketplace Morning Report
Marketplace
4.5 • 927 Ratings
🗓️ 5 May 2026
⏱️ 9 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Roughly one in every 20 U.S. workers is holding down multiple jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That's fallen a fraction of a percent since last fall, when we saw the highest rate since 1999 — around the moment just before the dot-com bubble burst, when there were fears about what increasing automation meant for job-holders. Sound familiar? Then, we'll unpack a recent water-saving plan to address the ongoing water crisis in the Colorado River Basin.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Marketplace Morning Report is brought to you by you. Yep, the most important piece of our budget is donations from you, our listeners. We call the folks who donate Marketplace investors because every dollar you give comes back to you in the form of trustworthy, grounded reporting with a sense of humor. |
| 0:18.2 | Please become a Marketplace investor today at marketplace.org |
| 0:21.7 | slash donate or click the link in our show notes. |
| 0:28.2 | Side hustles, side gigs, moonlighting, whatever you call it, a lot of people are doing it. |
| 0:33.5 | From Marketplace, I'm Sabrina Beneshore. About 8.5 million people in the U.S. hold down more than one job. |
| 0:40.8 | Basically, one in 20 workers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. |
| 0:44.5 | That is just a smidge lower than last fall when the percentage of people running multiple gigs |
| 0:49.2 | hit the highest level since 1999. |
| 0:52.5 | Marketplace's Kaylee Wells, has more. |
| 0:54.5 | Back in 1999, we were living in the moment before the dot-com bubble burst. |
| 0:59.2 | Economist Nicole Smith with Georgetown University says, |
| 1:02.2 | We're spending a lot more time talking about the fact that we have increased levels of automation, |
| 1:10.3 | what that means for job holders. |
| 1:12.8 | Sound familiar? Today, it's all about AI replacing entry-level jobs and forcing young people to piece together side hustles. |
| 1:20.5 | A lot of people are combining their primary job with the gay economy like Doradesh and Uber and freelance work. There's also a simpler reason why more people |
| 1:30.0 | are working multiple jobs. More jobs means more money, says economist Corey Staley with Indeed |
| 1:35.2 | Hiring Lab. And I don't think there's any coincidence with the cost of a lot of different things |
| 1:40.2 | going up and inflation. Obviously, you know, we saw that rise. And with the price increases |
| 1:45.0 | resulting from the war in Iran, Staley says the pressure to get another job might increase. |
| 1:50.3 | In the last 12 months, real wages only went up by like 0.1%. You know, so essentially, real wages |
| 1:56.8 | haven't changed. But clearly, just in the last, you know, few weeks the price of gasoline has. |
| 2:02.2 | In the past four months, the percentage of people who work multiple jobs had started to inch |
... |
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