TL;DR. The idea of a second career was popularised by a 2017 essay; in 2026 it can be argued with data. In September 2026, 8.99 million people in the United States held more than one job, 5.5 percent of the employed, and the record level of 9.29 million was set in November 2025. In the United Kingdom 1.28 million workers had a second job in May to July 2026, and across the EU-27 the rate was 4.06 percent in 2025. The research cuts both ways. People who start a business without quitting their job move into full-time entrepreneurship at 8.5 percent a year (against 0.7 percent of wage workers), empowerment from a side job can feed performance in the main job, and people whose second job differs from their main occupation are more likely to move to a new career. On the other side, multiple jobholders have a higher work injury rate (4.2 against 3.3 per 100 workers), shorter sleep and more work-family conflict. The distinction that matters: a second job taken because money is short is not the same thing as a second career built on purpose. The 6-question CEOtudent test at the end helps you see which one you are looking at. The CEO move is to treat a second career as a portfolio decision. The student move is to start it as a small, reversible experiment.
Why was this article rewritten?
The first version (2022) summarised Kabir Sehgal’s essay “Why You Should Have (at Least) Two Careers”, published in Harvard Business Review on 25 April 2017. The essay offered three reasons: one job can subsidise skill development in the other, each brings relationships from a different circle, and ideas cross between disciplines. These are reasonable observations, but they rest on one person’s experience.
This version removes the long quotations and replaces them with official statistics and peer-reviewed research. The question is the same: are two careers really better than one? The answer now begins with “for whom, and under what conditions”.
How many people hold a second job?
Official labour force surveys count people who worked in more than one job during a reference week. The table sets the latest figures from three statistical agencies side by side.
| Country or region | Share with a second job | People | Period and coverage | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | 5.5 percent | 8.99 million | September 2026, age 16 and over | BLS Current Population Survey |
| United Kingdom | 3.72 percent | 1.28 million | May to July 2026, age 16 and over | ONS Labour Force Survey |
| EU-27 | 4.06 percent | 8.44 million | 2025, age 15 to 74 | Eurostat Labour Force Survey |
| Netherlands (highest in the EU) | 10.34 percent | 1.02 million | 2025, age 15 to 74 | Eurostat Labour Force Survey |
| Germany | 5.00 percent | 2.12 million | 2025, age 15 to 74 | Eurostat Labour Force Survey |
| France | 4.66 percent | 1.37 million | 2025, age 15 to 74 | Eurostat Labour Force Survey |
| Türkiye | 4.27 percent | 1.38 million | 2025, age 15 to 74 | Eurostat Labour Force Survey |
| Spain | 2.60 percent | 0.58 million | 2025, age 15 to 74 | Eurostat Labour Force Survey |
| Bulgaria (lowest in the EU) | 0.55 percent | 16 thousand | 2025, age 15 to 74 | Eurostat Labour Force Survey |
Three notes on reading the table:
- Some of the rates are our calculation. Eurostat and the ONS publish only the number of people. The European and UK rates were calculated by CEOtudent by dividing second-job holders by total employment in the same age group. The US rate is the one the BLS itself publishes.
- The definitions are not identical. The age bands differ, and the US definition leaves out people whose two jobs are both self-employment. The Eurostat series has a break in 2021 caused by a change of method. Read differences between countries loosely.
- Surveys probably undercount. A US study based on administrative records put the rate at 7.8 percent in the first quarter of 2018 and notes that the survey rate is much lower (Bailey and Spletzer, 2020).
What has changed in the United States?
The calculation below is a CEOtudent analysis based on the BLS seasonally adjusted series, which begins in 1994.
| Point in the series | Multiple jobholders | Share of the employed |
|---|---|---|
| November 1996 (highest rate) | 8.31 million | 6.5 percent |
| December 2013 (low of the 2010s) | 6.85 million | 4.7 percent |
| April 2020 (lowest on record) | 5.38 million | 4.0 percent |
| September 2025 | 8.81 million | 5.4 percent |
| November 2025 (highest level) | 9.29 million | 5.7 percent |
| September 2026 | 8.99 million | 5.5 percent |
Between December 2013 and September 2026 the number of multiple jobholders rose by 2.1 million, or 31.2 percent, and the rate by 0.8 percentage points. The level is at or near its record, but the rate is still a full point below the 1996 peak: the number of people with two jobs is high in good part because the employed population itself is larger. In the UK the rate was 3.81 percent a year earlier.
The fastest rise in the first table is outside the US. In Türkiye the share with a second job went from 3.01 percent in 2023 to 4.27 percent in 2025, and the number of people from 949 thousand to 1.38 million, an increase of 45.8 percent in two years (CEOtudent calculation from Eurostat figures).
Women or men?
| Country or region | Men | Women |
|---|---|---|
| United States (September 2026) | 4.7 percent | 6.4 percent |
| United Kingdom (May to July 2026) | 3.21 percent | 4.26 percent |
| EU-27 (2025) | 3.69 percent | 4.49 percent |
| Germany (2025) | 4.42 percent | 5.65 percent |
| Netherlands (2025) | 10.09 percent | 10.62 percent |
| Türkiye (2025) | 5.35 percent | 2.08 percent |
In the US, the UK and the EU as a whole, second jobs are more common among women; in the US women were 55.4 percent of all multiple jobholders in September 2026. Türkiye shows the reverse, with a rate for men more than twice the rate for women. This compilation is also a CEOtudent analysis: the European and UK rates use the method described above, and the US rates come from the BLS series that are not seasonally adjusted.
Why do people take a second job?
Mostly for money. In May 2004, the last time the US survey asked for reasons, 38 percent of multiple jobholders said they worked a second job to earn extra money and 26 percent to meet expenses or pay off debt. Enjoyment of the second job was the reason for 18 percent, and 4 percent wanted to build a business or get experience in a different job (Hipple, 2010). The data are old, but the message is clear: the group that fits the “two careers” story is a minority.
The shape of second jobs points the same way. In September 2026, 57.8 percent of US multiple jobholders combined a full-time primary job with a part-time second one, and only 4.7 percent held two full-time jobs. According to administrative records, second jobs supply on average 27.8 percent of a multiple jobholder’s quarterly earnings (Bailey and Spletzer, 2020).
Second jobs are not confined to low-paid work, however. In the EU-27 in 2025, 30.9 percent of second-job holders had a first job in the professionals group (CEOtudent calculation from Eurostat data).
What does the research say in favour of a second career?
Starting without quitting is common and eases the transition. Folta, Delmar and Wennberg (2010, Management Science) followed 44,613 men working in knowledge-intensive sectors in Sweden from 1994 to 2001. Of 5,548 entries into self-employment, more than 58 percent were “hybrid” entries by people who kept their wage job. Hybrids moved into full-time self-employment at 8.5 percent a year, against 0.7 percent for wage workers. In the same data 36.6 percent of hybrids went back to wage work only within a year, so the second path is also a cheap trial. The figures are from the working-paper version of the study.
Those who later go full time survive longer. Raffiee and Feng (2014, Academy of Management Journal) found that people who started while keeping their job and later moved to full-time self-employment had much higher survival rates than those who quit directly. The effect was stronger for people with prior entrepreneurial experience. We could access only the abstract, so the percentage that is often quoted for this study is not given here.
A side job can feed the main job. Sessions and colleagues (2021, Academy of Management Journal) ran a survey of 337 employees and a 10-day diary study of 80 pairs of employees and co-workers. A sense of empowerment from the side job enriched performance in the full-time job, while continuing to think about the side job during working hours created a conflict that lowered it. According to the abstract, the enrichment effect was the stronger of the two.
A different second job can be a stepping stone. Panos, Pouliakas and Zangelidis (2014, Industrial Relations) used the British household panel for 1991 to 2005. People whose second job differed from their main occupation were more likely to switch to a new and different main job in the following year. The authors read second jobs as a channel for acquiring new skills and moving to new careers. The sample in the working-paper version is 5,590 employed men aged 18 to 60.
Holding more than one identity can be learned. Caza, Moss and Vough (2018, Administrative Science Quarterly) followed 48 people with several simultaneous careers over five years. Participants at first struggled to feel and appear authentic, and over time brought their work identities first into step and then into harmony.
What costs does the research show?
Injury risk. In the US National Health Interview Survey for 1997 to 2011, the work injury rate was 4.2 per 100 workers for multiple jobholders and 3.3 for single jobholders. For injuries outside work the rates were 9.9 and 7.4 (Marucci-Wellman and colleagues, 2014).
Sleep. In the American Time Use Survey for 2003 to 2011, men who worked both jobs on the same day slept 0.37 hours less on a weekday and 0.64 hours less on a weekend day than single jobholders (Marucci-Wellman, Lombardi and Willetts, 2016).
Mental health. In a study that followed 2,933 mostly low-income mothers (7,844 observations), holding multiple jobs was associated with a 3 to 4 percentage point higher probability of depression. The association was strongest for mothers who worked 45 hours or more a week, worked non-standard schedules and had lower earnings (Bruns and Pilkauskas, 2019).
Work-family conflict. A study of teachers and bartenders found that dual jobholders did not harm their employers through lower engagement or performance, but may be harming themselves through high work-family conflict (Webster, Edwards and Smith, 2019). Panel data for Germany, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands for 2002 to 2017 likewise showed negative well-being effects for people with both multiple jobs and children (Conen and Stein, 2021).
Persistence. According to the same panel study, multiple jobholding mostly comes in short episodes: in the United Kingdom 44 percent of multiple jobholders had returned to a single job a year later, while in Germany 58 percent were still holding multiple jobs after a year.
The overall picture. In their review of the literature, Campion, Caza and Moss (2020, Journal of Management) write that findings are inconsistent on whether multiple jobholding depletes or enriches, and that motivation probably decides which: is it done out of necessity or by choice?
How does the AI era change the decision?
According to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025, employers expect 39 percent of workers’ core skills to change by 2030. The figure was 44 percent in 2023 and 57 percent in 2020. The same report projects 170 million new jobs and 92 million displaced jobs by 2030, a net gain of 78 million, and says that if the world’s workforce were 100 people, 59 would need training.
The report does not mention second jobs; the connection is ours. If two fifths of skills are going to change, a small but real job in a field different from your main occupation is one way to try new skills at low risk. That is exactly what the stepping-stone finding describes. For the strategic frame behind this view, see optionality as a career strategy and career capital in the AI era; for how the shape of careers is changing, see why the T-shaped professional is obsolete.
The Second Career Fit Test
The test below is a CEOtudent editorial framework. It turns the findings above into six questions; it has not itself been tested in a study, and it is not financial or medical advice. Score each question 0, 1 or 2.
| Question | 0 points | 1 point | 2 points | Finding it rests on |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Are you pushed or pulled? | Only an urgent income gap | Both | Skills, meaning or a new field | The view that motivation shapes the outcome (Campion and colleagues) |
| 2. Does the second field build a different skill? | The same as the main job, only more hours | A neighbouring field | A different and transferable skill | A different second job eases career moves (Panos and colleagues) |
| 3. Is the decision reversible? | Giving up the main income | Reducing the main income | Keeping the main income and starting small | Hybrid entries are common and more durable (Folta and colleagues; Raffiee and Feng) |
| 4. What will your total hours be? | 45 hours a week or more | Under 45 but on irregular schedules | Under 45 and on regular schedules | Depression association strongest at long and non-standard hours (Bruns and Pilkauskas) |
| 5. Are sleep and recovery protected? | Both jobs fall on the same day most days | On some days | Jobs are split across days or blocks | Shorter sleep when both jobs are worked on one day (Marucci-Wellman and colleagues) |
| 6. Does it collide with care duties? | Heavy care load and no support | A load that is shared | No load, or strong support | Negative well-being effects for workers with children (Conen and Stein; Webster and colleagues) |
How to read your score
- 9 to 12 points: The conditions are right. Start with a small experiment that has an end date.
- 5 to 8 points: Fix the row where you scored lowest first, then score again.
- 0 to 4 points: Not now. In this pattern a second job is not a career investment but a symptom of an hours and income problem; solve that first.
How should you start?
The CEO move: manage the second career as a portfolio decision.
- Write a one-sentence thesis. Which skill, relationship or option will the second field give you? If the only answer is “extra income”, this is a second-job decision; run the numbers with the data in AI side hustle economics.
- Set an hours ceiling. Decide a weekly upper limit for both jobs together and write down in advance what you will drop when it is exceeded.
- Define the exit condition at the start. More than a third of hybrid entrepreneurs return to wage work alone within a year. Going back is not failure; it is one of the normal outcomes of an experiment.
- Read your contract. Check your employment agreement for clauses on outside work, competition and intellectual property, and get written approval where it is required.
The student move: learn through a small experiment.
- Run a three-month pilot. One client, one project, or a fixed few hours a week.
- Measure three things. Total weekly hours, sleep, and your performance in the main job. If the first two deteriorate, shrink the pilot.
- Carry what you learn back. The finding that a side job feeds the main job only pays off if you transfer between the two on purpose.
If you are thinking about going fully independent, the decision framework in freelancing vs full-time employment will help, and layoff-resilient careers shows which roles have held up through recent swings.
When is a second career not a good idea?
- When total hours are already high. The worst outcomes in the research cluster at long and irregular hours.
- When the second job is a lower-paid copy of the main job. A second job that brings no new skill creates no career option; it only adds hours.
- When you have a heavy care load and no support. This is the group with the clearest negative effects in the data.
- When you are not yet competent in your main job. Spreading into a second career before the first has depth can leave both shallow.
FAQ
How many Americans work more than one job?
In September 2026, 8.99 million, or 5.5 percent of the employed, according to the BLS Current Population Survey. The highest level on record is 9.29 million in November 2025, and the highest rate is 6.5 percent in November 1996.
Are two careers really better than one?
It depends on the conditions. The research shows benefits when the second field builds a different skill, the main income is kept and total hours stay reasonable. With long hours, irregular shifts and a heavy care load, the costs dominate.
Does a second job hurt performance in the main job?
On average, no. In one study, empowerment from a side job improved performance in the main job, and another found no harm to the employer. The price is paid mostly by the worker, in work-family conflict and sleep.
Should I quit to start my own business, or run both?
The research favours running both. In the Swedish data more than half of new entries into self-employment began without quitting, and people who later went full time survived longer.
How long do people keep a second job?
Often for short periods. In the UK panel, 44 percent of multiple jobholders were back to one job a year later.
Sources
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Current Population Survey, multiple jobholder series, and Employment Situation Table A-16, September 2026.
- Office for National Statistics. Labour Force Survey, table EMP01, May to July 2026.
- Eurostat. EU Labour Force Survey, datasets lfsa_e2ged, lfsa_egaed and lfsa_e2gis, annual data 2019 to 2025.
- Hipple SF. Multiple jobholding during the 2000s. Monthly Labor Review, July 2010.
- Bailey KA, Spletzer JR. A New Measure of Multiple Jobholding in the U.S. Economy. IZA Discussion Paper No. 13693, 2020.
- Folta TB, Delmar F, Wennberg K. Hybrid Entrepreneurship. Management Science. 2010;56(2):253-269. Figures from the IFN Working Paper No. 825 version.
- Raffiee J, Feng J. Should I Quit My Day Job? A Hybrid Path to Entrepreneurship. Academy of Management Journal. 2014;57(4):936-963. Abstract.
- Sessions H, Nahrgang JD, Vaulont MJ, Williams R, Bartels AL. Do the Hustle! Empowerment from Side-Hustles and Its Effects on Full-Time Work Performance. Academy of Management Journal. 2021;64(1):235-264. Abstract.
- Panos GA, Pouliakas K, Zangelidis A. Multiple Job Holding, Skill Diversification, and Mobility. Industrial Relations. 2014;53(2):223-272. Sample details from the IZA Discussion Paper No. 4437 version.
- Caza BB, Moss S, Vough H. From Synchronizing to Harmonizing: The Process of Authenticating Multiple Work Identities. Administrative Science Quarterly. 2018;63(4):703-745. Abstract.
- Campion ED, Caza BB, Moss SE. Multiple Jobholding: An Integrative Systematic Review and Future Research Agenda. Journal of Management. 2020;46(1):165-191. Abstract.
- Marucci-Wellman HR, Willetts JL, Lin TC, Brennan MJ, Verma SK. Work in Multiple Jobs and the Risk of Injury in the US Working Population. American Journal of Public Health. 2014;104(1):134-142.
- Marucci-Wellman HR, Lombardi DA, Willetts JL. Working multiple jobs over a day or a week: Short-term effects on sleep duration. Chronobiology International. 2016;33(6):630-649.
- Bruns A, Pilkauskas N. Multiple Job Holding and Mental Health among Low-Income Mothers. Women’s Health Issues. 2019;29(3):205-212.
- Webster BD, Edwards BD, Smith MB. Is Holding Two Jobs Too Much? An Examination of Dual Jobholders. Journal of Business and Psychology. 2019;34(3):271-285. Abstract.
- Conen W, Stein J. A panel study of the consequences of multiple jobholding: enrichment and depletion effects. Transfer. 2021;27(2):219-236.
- World Economic Forum. Future of Jobs Report 2025. January 2025.
- Sehgal K. Why You Should Have (at Least) Two Careers. Harvard Business Review, 25 April 2017.
This content was compiled with the support of AI following in-depth research, then written and prepared for publication by the CEOtudent editorial team.
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