78M Freelancers, Side Hustle Searches Spike | Numbers Scream Ep. 15

0:00Welcome back to Number Scream. I'm Tom Ellsworth, the BizDoc. We've got more numbers this week, so let's find out what's screaming. First of all, we're going to take you through freelancers, part-time jobs, people with two jobs, and the opportunities people may have or not have. We've covered economic stats a week ago that took people down a notch. Let's see if we can lift you up and showing you the reality of what's out there. Even the story's not good. There's opportunities to be had. Freelancers, freelancers making more 100 grand, people with two jobs, side hustles were it's dropping a little bit, and then side hustle searches. We have that and more this week. First up, 70 million freelancers in America and counting. Here's 2020, the heart of COVID. There's 21, 22, and then the bounce out year in 23. Take a look at the number of freelancers who are in America, but now take a look at the projection for this year, and we already have first quarter data, so we have something to look at, already at 78 million from 70.4 last year.

1:05There's an even higher projection in 27, but that's a projection. Look at right here at the jump about to happen. 36% of the U.S. workforce says that they freelance or side hustle doing something, and when you take a look at what's growing here, what it tells us is that the number of Americans looking for the second job isn't because we're trying to get rich, we're trying to get groceries. The situation itself is showing itself to be tougher, and it's showing up in the amount of Americans that are showing their toughness and trying to go out and make that extra bit for themselves or the family. This is a testimony to Americans, but it's a bad story for what is happening right now in the American economy. That's freelancers. Second up, freelancers that make over a hundred grand a year. In other words, people that have turned a side hustle into permanent freelancing. Maybe you're an AI expert and you're coaching companies. Maybe you're still doing social media coaching for people that advertise a lot for law and service or pool service on Instagram, and you're key to them being able to draw in leads from

2:09the community and get their business going. Whatever you're doing, the number of people that have turned it into pure full time, not W2, not independent professionals, they are actually full time freelancing from the extra room of their house or on a laptop at Starbucks. Look at this. 2020, again, the heart of COVID, 21, 22, the bounce out year, look what happened during COVID. All this freelancing happened. Did they go back to W2 jobs? No, it kept growing. And as of the end of last year, 5.6 million people are freelancing in the United States, making more than a hundred grand a year. This line is those making more than a hundred and look how it's grown 87% from the heart of COVID. It wasn't a COVID phenomenon. It was a permanent new line in the job market. This is just part of the gig economy, which is now $1.3 trillion of the American GDP. Freelancing.

3:15Now, third up, let's move from freelancing to people with W2s. They're actually working for a business or someone else, and there's a shocking stat. Take a look at this. 8.6 million people have two W2 jobs in the United States. These are just the ones they know about because this is the Federal Reserve economic data referred to as Fred. You can go to that website for yourself and check it out. 5.3% of workers have two W2 jobs. This is highest ever. It was 4.5% in the middle of COVID as people were scrambling, finding to do things, including working from home, including sometimes you had software engineers. No dig on them, but it's a fact that during COVID, there were software engineers working two full-time jobs at the same computer at the same time. Yes, it happened, and they got caught, but it's an example of how people are trying to be resourceful and earn more. This is not people that are trying to earn two jobs at once. These are people here. Half 49%

4:17have a W2, 40-hour a week, 50-hour a week, full-time job, and a secondary part-time job. Half of the total. Here, 21% have two part-time jobs. Now, maybe this is college students, but it's more likely single moms that don't have daycare and they're juggling schedule with two part-time jobs trying to make ends meet while the spouse is as a full-time job. Now, that's not male-female. It could be dad at home juggling that, and mom is a physician or a dental assistant, but this is people that have two part-time jobs. And lastly, down here, the people that are heroes, they are working two, 40-hour a week, part-time jobs. That's 80 hours a week. You know what that means? They are probably working a job, retail, full day Saturday, full day Sunday, and a bunch of evenings on top of a daytime full-time job. This is 24% of the 8.6 million are sitting there trying to buy groceries. This is tough stuff. I think this is what the administration and

5:19others in government need to be helping the American consumer with. The reason they're doing this is the affordability crisis in America and what it's costing. We can control energy, we can control fuel, we can also control electricity, and there's available mechanisms to do that today to help the American consumer right now. Even if you can't unwind all of the inflation that has happened to American farmers, which happens to seed, to fertilizer, to fuel, to labor, so that you can't run the price of apples and reverse. They're stuck, but there's a lot of things that can are more commoditized and energy is a big part of the American wallet that you could give relief to Americans because this is what they are doing to make ends meet. Fourth up, let's go to side hustles. Down 36%, the amount people have been making is down 36% over the past three years. Again, 22 and 23, the COVID jump out year, then 24 and 25, $442 a month

6:22down from 580. Now you may not think that that's a lot of money, but I know somebody that just paid $100 to fill up the tank in their pickup truck. Guess what? There's over $140 sitting right there. These side hustles, DoorDash, Uber, things like this. Why have they come down? DoorDash and Uber taking a little bit more of a cut, and there's more people competing for those jobs, and there's fewer hours available in those jobs, as people are actually starting to order from DoorDash a little less because of the vig that little upcharge and service fees that are on DoorDash. Even that's coming back. Well, that's fewer gigs to deliver the DoorDash, and so the average comes down. So side hustles, not people who are freelancers, not people with two jobs. People just trying to make a little in the evenings or the weekend, and the amount they're able to find is down 36% in three years. All the more reason why we need help in America in the affordability crisis, because these folks are just trying to make a few hundred extra more a month to cover the groceries,

7:27and it's getting harder just to do that. Side hustles. I decided to take a look at searches for side hustles. I found articles with shocking numbers. Let's take a look at here. October, November, December, January, War, War. Now, look, 48% surge in the amount of searches for side hustles. These people are searching DoorDash jobs, Uber jobs, social media coordinator. There's a sortment of terms that all point to people looking for side hustles and trying to figure it out. And look at that. The Google searches are up 48%, which means since the end of last year, with the pinches that have happened with energy, tariffs, and the economy, and the administration is doing good things on one hand, but on the other hand, citizens, consumers are feeling the heat and feeling it hot. The administration is trying to help, but help is not coming down stream fast enough for the American consumer. You can support the president, you cannot support the

8:28president, but you should always support your neighbor. And your neighbors have increased the amount of searches only since Christmas, because it's tougher to make ends meet, things are expensive, and they're trying to find opportunities to do it, and the Google searches are not lying. So this week, that's what I found for you. We went from boom to people making over a hundred K, and then the K-shaped economy shows its ugly head again with side hustles and what's happening there, and with people with two jobs showing the true state of America right now. And if you live in South Florida, or you're thinking of moving down here, go to vt.com, careers because we're hiring, and there may be opportunities for you. Until next time, I'm Tom Ellis with The BizDoc, and I hope I left you better than I found you.