Unemployment rate being 9.8 % is the highest in the present times. You might be an unemployed person, but you can always think about employing yourself one way or the other. You might have been given the pink slip by your employer but the world does not end there. Do you know that a lot of people are taking up two or more part-time jobs on a short term or long term basis to meet their financial requirements?

A lot of people are finding freelancing lucrative. I prefer freelancing because I never liked office politics. Going to office involves a lot of expenditure. Transportation costs, cost of eating out, and money spent on clothes etc. is an overhead that I can prevent when working from home. Also, I don’t have strict timings of reporting in office and I can work even while on a holiday. Recently when I was called for an interview for a full time on-site employment I was surprised to see that they were offering me much less pay than what I was getting by freelancing.

Freelancing is not your only option for a part-time income. There are many other options too. If you like visiting offices, you can always take up employment with more than one employer. You don’t have to fear being shown the pink slip once again. Even if one employer wants to slash employment due to bad economic conditions, you can always bank upon another employer. Also by working at two or more places, you are recreating yourself with different types of work and different working conditions. You get to make friends with more people than you could have when regularly employed full time with one employer. Nowadays people are working with more than one employer to make their necessities meet.

According to Careerbuilder.com report, more than 10 percent of the population today has taken up work with more than one employer in 2008 and this year twice the number have decided to follow suit. Employers are hiring people as consultants and contractors for their projects at lower pays. Employees on the other hand, are gladly accepting these jobs without much hesistation. They are taking up more jobs to meet their expenditures, if the pay given by a single employer is not enough. This will not only give them the much-needed extra buck, but also provide them job security too. If one job goes, the other is always there to bank upon.

Freelancing being a lucrative option now, the competition for freelancing has increased rapidly. Employers started hiring for short term projects and that too at lesser pays. Employees don’t have much choice but to take up these temporary and less paying assignments.

This is the time you can seriously contemplate a career change. If you are already unemployed you’ve got nothing to lose in case you don’t click because you don’t have a good career in hand which you can fear losing. Also, working in two different profiles will give you exposure to different jobs which you can then choose from as a permanent career in the future when the economy improves.