CANBERRA, March 22 (Xinhua) -- The number of Australians working second jobs has increased by 20 percent in only two years, topping 1 million.
According to data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) recently, 1.02 million Australians were working secondary jobs as of December 2018, an increase of 174,300, or 20.5 percent, from 846,600 in December 2016.
The most popular secondary jobs were in administrative and support services, which accounted for 23 percent of the total.
The number of secondary jobs in healthcare and social assistance grew from 97,000 to 120,000 while those in education and training rose from 107,000 to 126,000.
Sally McManus, the secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), the largest group representing workers' rights, said to The Australian that the data was representative of the "Uberisation of the workforce."
"(Prime Minister) Scott Morrison goes on about job creation but with the rise of insecure work, flat wages and high cost of living, the problem is people have to work two of these jobs just to make ends meet," she said.
"With the Uberisation of the workforce, we're fast heading down the American path where workers get the tips and scraps off the table, not a fair share of the revenue generated by their work."
The ABS also revealed on Thursday that the national unemployment rate at the end of February was down to 4.9 percent.
