More Women Moonlight to Get By

Working women will feel even more pressed for time in the future as a growing number of them have begun moonlighting. Women account for nearly two-thirds of the increase in multiple job-holding since 1985, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Both the number of women with two or more jobs (3.1 million) and their multiple job-holding rate (5.9%) were at record levels in 1989. The number of women holding two or more jobs has increased nearly 500% since 1970. While men are still more likely to hold an extra job, the proportion of men doing so has held steady for 20 years.

Widowed, divorced or separated women had a very high rate of multiple job-holding, 7.2%, compared to the overall rate for men and women of 6.2%; the latter figure is up from 5.4% in 1985. The total number of moonlighters last year was 7.2 million, the bureau reported.

Women cited the need to meet regular expenses or pay off debts as their reason for holding more than one job. Single women and single men, on the other hand, were more likely to cite saving for the future as their reason for multiple job-holding.

Three-fourths of the women held a second job as a wage or salary worker; the rest were self-employed. The majority worked 15 hours or less a week at their second jobs, most of which were managerial or service-related positions in retail trade, finance, insurance, real estate and service industries.

A typical moonlighter might be a widow or divorcee who sells clothing in a department store one or two evenings a week.

Futurists believe that the number of both women and men holding more than one job will continue to grow in the 1990s as more workers find part-time employment in the entrepreneurial market, or as they reduce their full-time employment to care for children and later need part-time jobs to make ends meet.

Dearth of Qualified People Looking for Jobs Expected in ‘90s

A surplus of unqualified job seekers is likely to emerge in the United States during the 1990s, at the very time that the number of qualified entry-level workers declines with the population of younger Americans.

“Employers will have to devote more effort to train and develop the less skilled to be job-ready,” said Peter A. Morrison, director of the Population Research Center for the RAND Corp. think tank in Santa Monica. These same employers, he noted, will also have to pay higher entry-level wages to attract skilled workers.

Unequal education opportunities mean that the poor and minority members will make up a large portion of these unqualified job seekers.

“Poverty among children curtails educational attainment,” Morrison warned. “When today’s first-graders reach adulthood, they will compete within a global labor market and will need intellectual skills and levels of education and literacy never demanded of their predecessors.”

Futurists agree that the job-skill requirements will be higher, which will pose problems for educators and businesses in the next decade. A recent national study found that the growth occupations of tomorrow will require significantly higher levels of basic education.

“The average level of skill attainment is not matching the skill requirements of the future,” said Fred Best, executive director of California’s newly established Adult Education Institute for Research and Planning. “In California, for instance, about three-fourths of the work force for the year 2000 is already in the labor market. This work force had a median educational attainment of 12.8 years--almost one year lower than the average of 13.5 years of schooling that will be required for employment in the year 2000.”

Unqualified job seekers and under-qualified workers are already a major cost for businesses. “Businesses currently spend billions of dollars on training and lose billions more due to lost productivity resulting from inadequate worker skills,” Best said.

Higher up on the job ladder, U.S. businesses will be looking for more well-rounded college graduates in the next decade.

According to a survey by Accountemps, a personnel service based in Menlo Park, business executives believe that a general awareness of a broad range of disciplines will best enable those in business to meet the challenges of tomorrow’s workplace.

Today’s college student interested in a business career will need to look further than simply studies in one major. As Accountemps Chairman Max Messmer put it: “In the ‘60s, it was liberal arts. In the ‘70s, it was business administration. In the ‘80s, it was computer science. But this decade, all three will be equally important disciplines for a successful career in business.”