You’ve heard of polyamory—but what about polyworking?
This rising career trend, which involves juggling multiple jobs at once, has surged in popularity over the past few years, reshaping what it means to build a career in an era of instability and ambition.
The shift didn’t happen overnight. Thanks to the pandemic’s reshaping of work norms, a volatile job market, and the whiplash of Trump’s boomeranging tariffs, today’s workforce is hustling harder than ever.
According to a new study by Academized, 52 percent of millennials, who constitute the largest portion of the American workforce, are working more than one job. Of those, 24 percent are managing three income-earning roles, and a striking 33 percent are holding four or more. A 2023 Paychex poll revealed similar patterns among Gen Z: Nearly half are working multiple jobs, with 47 percent clocking in at three or more gigs. And those numbers? They’re still climbing.
This isn’t just about ambition; it’s about adapting to survive in a world where one job is rarely enough.
Why are more people polyworking?
Unsurprisingly, the primary motivation is financial security. In a period of economic uncertainty, who wouldn’t want to stockpile some extra cash each month?
According to those surveyed in the Academized study, polyworking can bring in an additional $12,000 to $45,000 annually for just five to 20 extra hours of work per week. With inflation remaining around 2.5 percent, ongoing widespread layoffs, and stagnating salaries caused by falling wage gains, that kind of extra income can be transformative—especially when employers are no longer rewarding loyalty and labor the way they once did.
“Right now, there’s no job security,” says New York City–based career coach Lynn Berger. “Look at what’s happening with the federal sector: Jobs that you would think would never go away are gone. Those were jobs that people saw as very safe.”
“Full-time employment opportunities have also decreased tremendously,” adds Dave Rabin, a San Francisco–based board-certified psychiatrist and neuroscientist who has been studying the impact of chronic stress on humans for 15 years. “Big and small businesses are just not offering them [as much]; they want to conserve resources and save on benefits. It’s about the bottom line.”
Rabin also emphasizes the role of remote work in making polyworking more accessible—and more discreet. “People have extra time, and they want to make extra money, so if they can do both of those things from home, why wouldn’t they?”
But for some, the motivation goes beyond money. Creative fulfillment, skill building, and intellectual growth also play a role. “Someone who is actually more creative might work in finance so they can afford to do their creative endeavor on the side,” says Berger. “I’ve been [discussing polyworking] with my clients for a long time; it can be really freeing for them when they discover they can do a couple of things and don’t have to be boxed in to one.”
Gianluca Russo—a Gen Z polyworker who holds a full-time job on LinkedIn’s communications team and also works as an indoor cycling teacher, dance choreographer, and freelance writer and author—says that his generation simply grew up viewing polyworking as the norm. “A lot of it comes from the digital culture we were raised in. My earliest career memories are watching the Instagram stories of multihyphenate women in New York media running around all day working all these glamorous jobs,” he says. “The financial freedom that working multiple jobs gives me is amazing,” he adds. “The only way I’m able to handle working so many jobs at once is because I only work jobs I love.”
Still, Russo is fully aware that the current career landscape has nudged his generation, one that entered the workforce during or right after the pandemic and inherited a difficult job economy, into polyworking. “The job market is hard right now. As someone who literally works at LinkedIn, I see it every day. Gen Zers are on LinkedIn trying to not just find their ‘dream job’ but to find jobs—plural. Jobs that will sustain them, fuel them, and propel them to success. The workforce is so different than that of my parents, who worked at one company for decades upon decades. Now, the new ‘dream job’ is actually a corporate and side-hustle balance.”
What are the drawbacks?
Of course, polyworking is not without its downsides. One of the biggest? Time—or lack thereof. Twenty-six percent of respondents in the Academized study reported that their side hustles were negatively impacting their personal relationships. And time spent pursuing non-earning passions inevitably shrinks as well.
On the health front, polyworking can be a fast track to burnout if boundaries aren’t carefully managed. “You can’t just burn the candle at both ends,” says Rabin. “If you’re using up fuel working, and then you’re not refilling your tank by giving yourself optimal opportunities for recovery, then you’ll dramatically increase your likelihood of burning out.” And if that happens? “Then you can’t work at all for a while [while you recover]. That certainly isn’t better than just working one job. [Burnout can result in] relationship consequences, getting divorced, or people losing their partners because of overworking and being irritable all the time in their home. There are unspoken, unmeasurable, nonfinancial consequences.”
That said, not all polyworkers are equally vulnerable to burnout. Rabin notes that individuals who genuinely enjoy the work they’re doing—whether creatively, intellectually, or emotionally—may find that longer hours are not only tolerable but even energizing. “That can make working longer hours than what would normally be considered a typical 40-hour week actually sustainable,” he shares.
Is it worth it?
For many polyworkers, the answer is yes. When asked whether they found their multijob lifestyle sustainable, 58 percent of Academized’s respondents said they planned to continue working multiple jobs, and nearly a third reported seeing no major disadvantages. Most notably, 41 percent said that the extra income has helped reduce their financial stress.
In the end, polyworking is less a trend than a recalibration of what modern work looks like. For some, it’s about passion; for others, it’s pure necessity. Either way, the message is clear: In today’s economy, one job often just isn’t enough—so people are making room for more.
