Breadwinners take on multiple jobs to make ends meet

Economy

Published: 31 Jan. 2023, 18:04 Updated: 31 Jan. 2023, 20:34

Breadwinners take on multiple jobs to make ends meet

Shin In-seob, who works as a part-time delivery man at Coupang, delivers packages at dawn in Seocho District, southern Seoul, on Jan. 29. [CHOI SU-NEUL]

The number of breadwinners taking on second jobs reached a record high last year as they try to make ends meet in the high inflation era.

Shin In-seob is among those juggling two jobs.

The 41-year-old who runs his own local festival events production business picked up a part-time delivery job at Korea’s e-commerce firm Coupang three years ago, as the Covid pandemic led to a huge reduction in his business.

At 4 a.m. on Sunday, Jan. 29, hours before the sun came up, Shin headed to Coupang’s logistic center in Seocho District, southern Seoul, to pick up the packages that need to be delivered.

Shin loaded the 49 parcels allocated to him, including boxes and fresh food wrapped in cold packs, onto the backseats and trunk of his vehicle.

His assigned delivery area on this particular day was a residential area in Bangbae-dong of Seocho District where many of the low-rise apartments do not have elevators.

“It is exhausting to go up the stairs carrying heavy boxes, but high-rise apartments have long wait times, so they both have pros and cons,” Shin said. “I run up and down the stairs for a five-story building.”

For dawn delivery, packages have to be delivered by 7 a.m. the very next day, meaning deliveries have to be done in a matter of hours.

Shin arrived at the first destination, entered the password, went through the ground floor gate, placed the package at the customer's front door and took a photo to send to the recipient — and repeated the process 49 times at 32 places. By then, it was already 6:20 a.m.

“Coupang gives 200 won for a returned Fresh Bag, or Coupang’s reusable cold pack, so I always collect the ones that the customer places at their front door,” Shin said.

After delivering all the packages and returning 11 Fresh Bags to the firm, Shin finally got off his early-morning shift at 7 a.m. He made a total of 63,700 won.

In 2022, when Shin did dawn delivery services seven days a week, he earned as much as 2 million won a month. These days, Shin works fewer hours — three days a week — and heads to his full-time job afterwards.

“Coupang Flex has a system in which I can choose my own working schedule, which is why I chose it as my second job,” Shin said. “I'm sleep deprived, but I am planning to continue working because of the high cost of living.”

According to data from Statistics Korea analyzed by the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI), the number of heads of households who held two or more jobs reached a record high average over the first to third quarters of 2022, at 368,000. It jumped from the same period in 2017 by 41 percent.

Among them, the number of multiple jobholders in their 20s or 30s increased 37.2 percent from 78,000 people in 2017 to 107,000 in 2022.

Choo Kwang-ho, head of the economic division at FKI, said, “It is believed that young people with relatively low wages prepare additional income sources through remote or platform work or part-time jobs.”

Another 43-year-old man, who ran a marketing agency targeting small business owners and now has a second job in food materials sales, said, "The shop owners I know say it is strange not to have two or more jobs these days.”

His profits, which once amounted to 5 million won a month, have fallen sharply to around 1 million won since the Covid-19 outbreak.

“There is a limit to the income,” he said. “As interest rates rise, my spending has increased noticeably, making me a multiple job holder involuntarily,” he said.

Another major reason behind the rising number of multiple job holders is the diversification of employment types and the availability of part-time jobs where people can choose their hours.

According to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, the number of delivery riders nearly doubled in three years from 119,626 in the first half of 2019 to 237,188 in the first half of 2022.

"While the labor market changed due to reduced working hours, changing perceptions, and increasing delivery platforms, more and more people have been forced to hold down multiple jobs to pay bills following the recent inflation and economic downturn,” said Sung Tae-yoon, an economics professor at Yonsei University.

BY CHOI SU-NEUL [seo.jieun1@joongang.co.kr]