Research from Omnisend, a marketing automation platform, revealed that almost half of all adults now have a side hustle. Of those entrepreneurial efforts, selling products via ecommerce is the top choice for those within the UK (72%), Australia (59.3%), Canada (53.4%) and the US (51.9%). Gig economy jobs that pay instantly and have few barriers to entry, such as Uber, Lyft and food delivery, are still experiencing popularity, particularly in the US where 19.3% of workers prefer these alternatives.
Majority of these jobs pay less than $500 per month, but almost a quarter of US workers within this niche earn between $501-$1,000. Only 3.6% of side hustlers in the US and 2.8% in the UK earn more than $5,000 per month. This earning potential is still the greatest carrot across the board, where extra income is cited as the strongest driver for starting a side hustle in the US (83.6%), UK (83.5%), Canada (87.1%) and Australia (88.4%).
Workers in this category are facing a number of obstacles to success, leading to fatigue or leaving the job altogether. Among these US workers, the most common reason for exiting an opportunity was burnout and stress (20%), followed by a lack of earning potential (19.1%), and personal life changes (17.7%).