Around 959,000 Australians were holding multiple jobs in the June 2023 quarter according to data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
This is up 7 per cent over the past year.
The retail sector employed 87,700 multi-job holders, which was down from a peak of 90,200 in the December quarter, but up from 83,800 in June last year.
Retail is now the fourth largest employer of multi-job holders, down from third position in the last quarter.
“Growth in multiple job-holders continued to outpace increases in overall employment, with the number of secondary jobs rising by 0.2 per cent and main jobs up by 0.8 per cent,” ABS head of labour statistics Bjorn Jarvis said. “As a result, the rate of multiple job-holding climbed to a new high of 6.7 per cent in the June quarter 2023.”
“Over the 25 years before the COVID-19 pandemic, the rate of multiple job-holding had usually been between 5 and 6 per cent. It has generally been increasing over the past two years and has now been 6.3 per cent or higher for the past seven quarters.”
According to Jarvis, this means that around one in 15 people had more than one job in the June quarter 2023, compared to one in 18 people 20 years ago.
“Looking over the past 20 years, there are around 50 per cent more employed people than there were in June quarter 2003, but close to 80 per cent more multiple job-holders.”
Key secondary jobs for retail employees included those within accommodation and food services alongside administration jobs.
For women, healthcare and education jobs were key secondary jobs, while men employed in professional, scientific and technical services held retail jobs as secondary employment.
The rate of women holding multiple jobs was at 7.6 per cent in the June quarter up nearly 2 percentage points from men at 5.7 per cent.
“Over the past five years, the multiple job-holding rate for women has been, on average, about 1.9 percentage points higher than for men,” Jarvis said.
“The Health care and social assistance industry had the highest overall number of people holding more than one job (157,200 people), around 78.9 per cent of whom were women.
“This broadly reflects the gender distribution of employed people in this industry, with Labour Force data showing that 76.5 per cent are women.”
Younger workers were also more likely to hold multiple jobs, including 8.0 per cent of 15-19 year-olds and 8.2 per cent of 20-24 year-olds.
ABS noted that many of the industries with higher rates of multiple job-holding are also where younger workers more commonly work.
Meanwhile, job vacancies declined in nine of the 19 industries in the June quarter, with the largest drop seen in retail trade, down 5,600 vacancies.
According to the ABS, these falls were partially offset by increases in the remaining 10 industries.
Despite the recent overall increase in filled jobs, which rose by 0.8 per cent over the quarter, job vacancies remained much higher than before the pandemic. They fell by 3 per cent in the June 2023 quarter - the third straight fall - but remained 87.4 per cent above the March 2020 quarter.
Around 2.7 per cent of total jobs were vacant in the June quarter, which was down from the record high of 3.2 per cent in the September 2022 quarter, but still well above the 1.6 per cent in the March 2020 quarter.
Hours worked increased by 2.5 per cent in the June quarter, up 5.8 per cent from the same time last year. ABS noted that some of this growth reflected fewer people than usual working reduced hours over the Easter holiday period in April.