Oregon’s Multiple Jobholders

August 06, 2026

In 2025, 134,000 Oregonians held at least one job in addition to their primary job, meeting the definition of multiple jobholders. The multiple jobholding rate – the proportion of multiple jobholders among all employed workers 16 years and older – was 6.4%, a continued increase from the record low (4.6%) seen in 2022. Oregon’s multiple-jobholding rate reached a record high of 8.7% in 1995. The national multiple jobholding rate in 2025 was 5.4%, a slight increase from 5.2% in 2024.

Multiple jobholding has generally become rarer in Oregon and the U.S. since 1995, but that trend started to reverse after the pandemic recession. The 2020 pandemic recession and the recovery in 2021 and 2022 showed a decrease in the multiple jobholding rate in Oregon. Then in 2023, the multiple job holding rate jumped from 4.6% to 5.8%. This was followed by continued increases in 2024 and 2025. For the U.S., there has been a steady increase in the multiple job holding rate since the 2020 low of 4.5% to 5.4% in 2025.

Data in this article comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Current Population Survey. The annual estimates for 2025 are 11-month averages because the October 2025 data was not collected due to the federal government shutdown. As a result, the 2025 annual estimates are not strictly comparable with the annual averages for other years.

Oregonians More Likely to Work Multiple Jobs in 2025

Oregon workers were more likely to hold more than one job at a time than our national counterparts, a trend dating back at least two decades. Oregon’s multiple jobholding rate has been higher than the U.S. every year since 1994, with the brief exceptions of 2004 and 2022.

Both the U.S. and Oregon’s multiple job holding rates decreased in 2020. Since then, the U.S. and Oregon have experienced different trends: Oregon’s rate decreased until the recent reversal in 2023 while the U.S. rate has been increasing steadily over the last five years.

Economic conditions can certainly affect whether or not an individual wants or needs to work more than one job, but there is no clear association between the multiple-jobholding rate and the business cycle. That is because fewer jobs are available during recessions, right when more people need a second job to help meet their expenses. During expansions, increased income and looser credit constraints mean fewer people need a second job to meet expenses. These factors can cancel each other out on the whole, which is why multiple jobholding rates don’t necessarily rise or fall significantly with the business cycle.

Multiple Jobholding Rates Vary Across the Country

Northern states generally have higher multiple jobholding rates than southern states, as shown in the map. Kansas had the highest multiple jobholding rate at 9.0% in 2025, followed by Wyoming at 8.3% and Alaska and Maryland at 8.1%. Alabama and Florida had the lowest multiple job holding rates in 2025 at 3.5% and 3.9%, respectively.

Oregon had the highest multiple job holding rate amongst its neighbors. Multiple jobholding among Oregon’s neighboring states in 2025 ranged from a high of 5.7% in Idaho, 4.8% in Nevada, 4.5% in California, and 4.3% in Washington state.

Who Are the Multiple Jobholders?

Demographic information about multiple jobholders isn’t available at the state level, but nationally there is more detailed information about people who hold more than one job.

When looking at multiple jobholders by age groups, those in the “prime working age” group (25 to 54 years old) had the highest multiple jobholding rate, at 5.7% in 2025, up from 5.5% in 2024. Younger workers (16 to 19 years old) had a multiple jobholding rate of 4.0%, the lowest of any age group. Those 55 and older had a multiple jobholding rate of 4.7%, unchanged from the prior year. Workers 20 to 24 years old had a multiple jobholding rate of 5.5%.

In 2025, those of Hispanic or Latino ethnicity had a multiple jobholding rate of 3.6%. Black or African Americans workers held multiple jobs at a rate of 6.6%, while white workers had a multiple jobholding rate of 5.3%, and Asian workers had a rate of 3.9%.

Women’s multiple jobholding rate was 5.9% and men’s was 4.9% in 2025. When this series of data began in 1994, the multiple jobholding rate for men and women was essentially equal, hovering around 6.0%. However, as multiple jobholders decreased for men and women in the late 1990s, women began consistently having higher multiple jobholding rates than men.