The Hidden Cost of Living Crisis: What Employees Taking on Second Jobs Means for Your Business.

By Peter Boolkah, a corporate, award winning business coach with over 30 years experience helping companies, in the UK and US, scale up and grow.

A recent LinkedIn poll I conducted revealed a trend that should make every business leader pause. Seventy per cent of respondents, many of them senior leaders across early years support, business services, and tech, reported that employees in their teams are now working second jobs. Not for career development. Not out of boredom. But because they simply can’t make ends meet. We are witnessing side jobs becoming quietly normal, not as ambition-driven “side hustles”, but as survival strategies. This is not just a cost-of-living issue. It’s a business problem with serious long-term consequences for culture, productivity, and retention.

For many employers, this might come as a shock. Surely if people are picking up extra work, they’re managing fine? The reality is that people are increasingly splitting their energy across multiple jobs just to stay afloat. The rising cost of living, combined with wage stagnation and increased household pressures, has made a second income less of a choice and more of a necessity. This is no longer limited to low-paid industries. I’ve spoken with business owners who’ve seen software developers, marketing execs, and even mid-level managers quietly moonlighting on evenings and weekends. That’s energy being taken away from their day jobs. What it means is a slow drain on focus, innovation, and resilience.

If this trend continues unchecked, we’re heading towards a tipping point. Over the next 6-12 months we will see burnout and fatigue skyrocket. We know that juggling two jobs leaves no room for rest. Exhausted employees make more mistakes, call in sick more often, and eventually, burn out. It’s not just a health risk, it hurts your business’s productivity. Working two jobs means your attention is divided, and quality will inevitably drop because of slower output, less attention to detail, and a drop in creativity. Over time, this chips away at team performance and it will have an impact on client satisfaction.

If employees feel they have no choice but to take on extra work, it’s a clear signal they don’t feel financially supported. Retention will deteriorate because they’ll look elsewhere, to better-paid or more flexible roles. The other issue is that when some employees are visibly stretched and others aren’t, it breeds resentment. It causes morale to dip, and collaboration suffers. You risk ending up with a fractured culture. Along the same lines as that, is the fact that if only certain groups of employees are forced into second jobs, it exposes underlying disparities in pay and opportunity. These disparities often show themselves in gender, age, or background. It causes disengagement and mistrust.  Employees quite rightly expect honesty and care. When they don’t see it, loyalty crumbles. Eventually, you will see your leadership credibility being hit, and your employees could see you as being out of touch. 

There are some leaders I have spoken to in my network who have realised this situation and are actively doing something about it. They are responding with empathy and creativity. They are having to rethink leadership in light of this high-cost economy. Very few are in a position to offer major salary increases, but they’re doing something more powerful, for a start, they are acknowledging the problem and showing they care. They are having honest, open conversations. Employees want to feel heard. We should be normalising discussions around financial wellbeing, it breaks the stigma and opens the door for support. Some of the leaders I have spoken to are exploring profit sharing, performance-based bonuses, or retention incentives. These aren’t just perks, they’re signals that effort is recognised. Some other ways to help employees in this position could be to consider how their schedule might adapt to accommodate them taking on freelance work or running a small side business, without compromising their main role. Offer flexible working conditions if you can. Providing financial planning tools can also help. Workshops, budgeting support, and access to advisers can make a meaningful difference in helping staff feel more in control. None of these strategies requires massive spending. But they do require a shift in leadership mindset, from “keep your personal life out of work” to “how can we support the whole person, not just the employee?”

If we pretend this is just a temporary blip, we’ll face a slow erosion of trust, energy, and talent. Company culture isn’t built in team away-days or mission statements. It’s shaped in the everyday realities your people face. If their reality is stress, fatigue, and silence, you won’t get their best work, and you won’t keep them for long. Constantly hiring staff is an expensive business in many different ways. This isn’t a crisis to be feared. It’s a moment to change your leadership style. To lead with empathy and show that business success and employee wellbeing aren’t mutually exclusive. We know that if your team is happy and thriving, so is your business.