Megan
Megan, a 28-year-old mom, quit her job after having her second child.
In addition to caregiving, she had to get a part-time job to help support her family.
She’s among the millions of Americans choosing to work part-time due to burnout, childcare obligations, and to earn extra income.
Megan, a 28-year-old Missouri millennial, is doing whatever she can to avoid returning to work full-time.
Her solution involves a part-time job and two side hustles, but at least she feels some ownership over her time.
Prior to 2020, Megan worked remotely, full-time, as a homeowners insurance claims adjuster while also caring for her son. When her daughter was born last June, she knew she wouldn’t be able to balance full-time work and caretaking, she told Insider. Megan asked that her last name be withheld for privacy reasons.
While she says she “loved” her job — which paid roughly $3,000 per month — she decided to quit. Megan says it would cost a combined roughly $1,600 per month to put both her children in daycare. The cost and the time she would lose with them while working wasn’t worth it.
Just three months later, however, she and her husband took stock of their finances and “quickly realized” she needed to get a job for them to get by. Their mortgage payment of roughly $1,880 per month was, in particular, straining their finances. Insider viewed Megan’s documents to verify her income and mortgage payments.
In October, she started working 15 to 20 hours per week remotely in an insurance role for a different employer that pays roughly $1,600 per month — and continued caring for her now two-year-old and eight-month-old. She’s also tacking on extra income posting what she calls “mom/lifestyle” social media content and reselling items on Facebook Marketplace.
Megan is one of the over 22 million Americans working part-time voluntarily, according to Labor Department data. That’s more than five times the number — 4.1 million — who were part-time but wanted a full-time gig, the highest ratio of voluntary to involuntary part-time employment in two decades. In part, this data speaks to the strong US labor market, but there are also many Americans not pursuing full-time gigs due to health issues, childcare responsibilities, and burnout. And some, like Megan, are being pulled into the workforce to help their families make ends meet due to high inflation and cost …read more
Source:: Business Insider