Can You Juggle Multiple Jobs?

Ken Hall expected it would take much longer to get back to work. Within a few weeks of being downsized from his position as marketing director of an architecture firm, the 47-year-old from Memphis had scored a new job.
Actually, make that four. Between organizing press conference for the city’s Walk of Fame, booking bands to the local cotton museum, promoting a new golf league and pulling together a patent presentation for a local inventor, he was keeping busy enough. The latest gig he’s thrown into the mix? Bartending. “It makes for an erratic schedule,” says Hall.

For the nation’s growing ranks of unemployed, the odyssey begins with a pink slip. Only these days the quest doesn’t lead to a single new job but many. Faced with a national unemployment rate that recently jumped to a 26-year high, more than 7 million Americans are cobbling together a patchwork of positions to make ends meet. A recent survey from job site CareerBuilder.com revealed that 10 percent of workers had taken on a second job in 2008, while nearly double that said they plan to do so this year. Not surprisingly, the folks most likely to find themselves freelancing are those a little further down the bumpy road to retirement; a full 65 percent are over the age of 46.

A year of crushing layoffs has driven much of this workforce shift. Analysts say firms that aren’t downsizing are hiring contractors, consultants and other contingent workers—for lower pay and few, if any, benefits (which cost them, on average, an extra 30 percent). And the only way many workers find to minimize their risk of being unemployed again is to diversify the number and kinds of jobs they hold, not unlike an investment portfolio. “More people are doing it out of necessity,” says Ravin Jesuthasan, of consulting firm Towers Perrin.

Losing a steady paycheck and benefits certainly isn’t easy—especially with a family to support. And experts say competition among freelancers has become increasingly fierce, with projects running shorter and paying less. Still, some workers are seeing silver linings: self-structured time, a refreshing lack of office politics, a greater variety of tasks and contacts—and the chance to fast-track a career change.

Phillip LoFaso has had his share of workplace adventures during a 23-year career in marketing. Yet none of it prepared him for this: Last fall the 50-year-old found himself aboard an 85-foot-long fishing boat off the coast of Long Island, trawling for scallops and squid while trying not to get seasick. Once LoFaso helped yank the nets out of the water, he’d toss back catch that couldn’t be sold to restaurant distributors: bluefish, sand sharks and, yes, a baby whale. “It can be unnerving,” says LoFaso, who was back on the boat this summer. “I’m a 9-to-5 guy.”

Or at least he was. Ever since this father of two from Huntington, N.Y., got laid off from a health care publishing company last April, he’s been working all sorts of hours—trying to make up his former $150,000 salary. A full-time consulting gig in publishing downscaled to part-time, then ended abruptly earlier this year. He’s spent hot summer days hoisting hundreds of seats into makeshift stadiums for outdoor events like a Hilary Duff concert. He’s also been painting houses, bussing tables at parties and driving a catering van—not to mention piloting that fishing vessel in the wee hours while the captain sleeps. “As long as it’s not illegal or immoral, I’m ready to go,” says LoFaso.

For his efforts, though, LoFaso is still facing an issue common among patchwork part-timers: generating income. Even with all his jobs, he’s making less than a quarter of his former salary, without benefits. Indeed, a recent Columbia University study says that workers who lost their jobs in mass layoffs in the 1980s were still earning about 20 percent less than similar nondisplaced workers two decades later. To bring in extra income, LoFaso’s wife, Regina, a preschool teacher, started babysitting part-time. But they’re still falling behind on mortgage payments for their five-bedroom home—meaning fewer movies and dinners out and no summer vacation. LoFaso says the worst part is, with all this job juggling and searching, he’s now spending less time with his family than he did when he was working full-time.

Still, LoFaso suspects the right project at the right time might lead him back to a full-time gig. In fact, every two weeks he meets with a local support group made up of former marketers. While they set aside time to vent about the personal challenges they’ve each been facing, they also swap tips about improving their résumés and interview skills. And most important, they share job leads. “We’ve stopped thinking of it as competition,” he says.