More than 8 million people in the United States were working multiple jobs in August 2026, underscoring how secondary employment remains a meaningful part of the labor market.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated that 8.505 million people were multiple jobholders in August 2026, based on data that were not seasonally adjusted. That represented 5.2% of all employed people. Rounded to one decimal place, the estimate was 8.5 million.

The figure was nearly unchanged from August 2025, when BLS estimated 8.479 million multiple jobholders, also representing 5.2% of total employment. That year-over-year comparison is particularly useful because the figures come from the same month and neither has been adjusted for seasonal patterns.

The multiple-jobholder figure comes from the Current Population Survey, the monthly household survey used by BLS to measure employment, unemployment and other labor force characteristics.

Under the BLS definition, multiple jobholders are employed people who held two or more jobs during the survey reference week, with at least one of those positions being a wage and salary job. Someone who is self-employed while also holding a wage and salary job can therefore qualify as a multiple jobholder. A person operating several unincorporated businesses without a wage and salary job, however, is not classified this way.

The distinction matters because the statistic does not simply count every person earning income from more than one source. It measures employment according to a specific labor-market definition.

The CPS generally surveys about 60,000 scientifically selected households each month. The Census Bureau conducts the interviews for BLS, asking about employment and job-search activity during a reference week that usually includes the 12th day of the month. Survey responses are then weighted to produce national estimates.

The survey covers people age 16 and older in the civilian noninstitutional population across the 50 states and District of Columbia. It excludes members of the Armed Forces and people living in institutions such as correctional facilities and residential nursing facilities. The measure is population-based rather than a count restricted to U.S. citizens.

The August data provide a clearer picture of how people were combining their jobs.

About 4.755 million multiple jobholders had a full-time primary job and a part-time secondary job, making this by far the largest arrangement reported by BLS.

Another 2.107 million people worked part time at both their primary and secondary jobs. About 452,000 had both a full-time primary job and a full-time secondary job, while 1.095 million were classified as having hours that varied on either their primary or secondary job. BLS also includes a small number of people with a part-time primary job and a full-time secondary job, but does not publish that category separately in the monthly table.

The figures show that multiple jobholding does not usually mean maintaining two conventional full-time schedules. The most common arrangement in August was a full-time main job combined with part-time secondary employment.

Women accounted for a larger number of multiple jobholders than men in August.

BLS estimated that 4.595 million women held multiple jobs, compared with 3.910 million men. Multiple jobholders represented 6.0% of employed women and 4.6% of employed men.

The gap also appeared in the previous year's data. In August 2025, 5.7% of employed women and 4.8% of employed men were classified as multiple jobholders.

These figures describe the prevalence of multiple jobholding within each group. They do not, on their own, explain why workers take additional jobs. The monthly CPS table measures employment arrangements rather than workers' motivations, so the data should not automatically be interpreted as evidence of financial hardship or any other single cause.

There is another important figure in the August employment report.

BLS also published a seasonally adjusted estimate of 8.805 million multiple jobholders, equivalent to 5.4% of total employment. In July, the corresponding seasonally adjusted estimate was 8.693 million, also 5.4% of employment.

The headline figure of 8.5 million refers instead to the not seasonally adjusted estimate of 8.505 million.

Neither figure is inherently more accurate. They serve different purposes. Not seasonally adjusted data show the estimated level observed for the particular month, while seasonal adjustment attempts to remove recurring calendar and seasonal patterns so that underlying month-to-month movements are easier to evaluate.

For year-over-year comparisons involving the same month, the unadjusted figures can be especially informative because both periods are exposed to similar seasonal influences. For comparisons from one month to the next, seasonally adjusted data are generally more useful.

That distinction also explains why reports using BLS data can cite somewhat different multiple-jobholder totals for the same month without necessarily contradicting one another.

Annual BLS figures provide additional context. On an annual-average basis, the United States had 8.8 million multiple jobholders in 2025, representing 5.4% of employed people. The corresponding 2024 average was 8.431 million, or 5.2%.

Those annual averages should not be compared directly with a single unadjusted monthly observation as though they measure identical periods. An annual average incorporates conditions across all 12 months, while the August 2026 figure captures one month's reference period.

Still, the figures establish the broader scale of multiple jobholding. In recent years, the number of people simultaneously holding more than one qualifying job has consistently been measured in the millions rather than representing a small statistical fringe of the workforce.

Multiple jobholding is also important when interpreting the government's broader employment statistics because the United States measures workers and jobs through two different monthly surveys.

The household survey counts an employed person once, even when that person has more than one job. The separate establishment survey, which produces the widely reported nonfarm payroll figure, measures payroll jobs. A person working for two nonfarm employers can therefore contribute two jobs to the payroll count.

In August 2026, the establishment survey showed that total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 162,000, while the unemployment rate from the household survey remained at 4.1%. The labor force participation rate was 61.6%.

Those indicators describe different parts of the labor market and should not be treated as interchangeable. The 8.5 million multiple-jobholder figure is an estimate of people with more than one qualifying job, not an estimate of the number of secondary jobs added during the month.

The clearest reading of the August data is also the simplest. An estimated 8.505 million people held multiple jobs, equivalent to 5.2% of U.S. employment on a not seasonally adjusted basis. The corresponding rate was the same as in August 2025.

Most multiple jobholders combined a full-time primary job with part-time secondary work, and women continued to have a higher multiple-jobholding rate than men.

Because the CPS is a sample survey, its figures are estimates rather than a complete count of every worker. BLS notes that CPS statistics are subject to both sampling and nonsampling error, making it important not to assign excessive significance to small movements in individual monthly estimates.

What the data can establish is the scale of the phenomenon. Multiple jobholding remains a regular feature of the U.S. labor market, encompassing millions of workers and a little more than one in every 20 employed people in August 2026.