New ABS and Deputy data show record poly-employment, prompting a warning on managing conflict-of-interest risk
Australia's side hustle economy has hit a new high. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) reported on 11 September that 1.0 million people held more than one job in the June 2026 quarter – 6.9 per cent of all employed Australians and the highest multiple job-holding rate on record.
Released alongside fresh scheduling data from workforce platform Deputy, the figures confirm what many HR leaders already suspect: secondary income has moved from the margins into the mainstream of Australian working life, and it is reshaping how employers roster, retain and manage risk.
According to the ABS, women are considerably more likely than men to hold multiple jobs – 7.7 per cent of employed women compared with 6.2 per cent of employed men – and workers aged 20 to 24 have the highest rate of any age group, at 11.2 per cent.
The multiple job-holding rate sat between 5.0 and 6.0 per cent for most of the period from 1994 to 2019, before falling sharply during the COVID-19 pandemic and then climbing to today's record level, where it has stayed at or above 6.4 per cent since June 2022.
Administrative and support services recorded the highest rate of multiple job-holding by industry, at 9.8 per cent, while electricity, gas, water and waste services recorded the lowest, at 3.4 per cent. Separately, Westpac research released in November 2025 found that 55 per cent of Australians were either already earning income from a side hustle or actively considering starting one, with 27 per cent currently doing so.
Employers are rostering further ahead to keep pace
Deputy's August 2026 Hourly Work Index, which draws on anonymised and aggregated workforce data across healthcare, hospitality, retail and services, found employers locked in shifts an average of 8.3 days ahead in August – up 24.1 per cent on July and 47 per cent higher than January's 5.6-day average. Total hours worked fell 7.7 per cent month-on-month, the steepest monthly decline of 2026, even as average hourly pay rose 1.8 per cent to $37.26.
Healthcare showed the strongest shift towards earlier rostering: in-home care providers lifted their average notice period by 102 per cent to 12.1 days, and NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme) providers by 51 per cent to 10.2 days.
"The 8.3-day rostering figure is the most important number in this month's Index," said Ciaran Hale, chief technology officer at Deputy. "It shows employers are starting to treat certainty as part of the employment offer … For many hourly workers, a second or third role is no longer unusual. When one roster does not fill a week, people need enough notice to coordinate another job, caring responsibilities or study."
Where side hustles create legal risk for employers
The rise in poly-employment is prompting employers to look more closely at where a side hustle stops being harmless and starts being a liability. Joel Hayden, practice group leader in the employment team at commercial law firm LegalVision, said the real exposure begins when an employee draws on the employer's own resources to build their outside venture.
"If an employee uses customer lists, pricing, supplier details, product designs, templates, confidential know-how, software, equipment or paid working time for their own business, the employer may have claims for breach of contract, breach of confidence, misuse of intellectual property or breach of duties owed during employment," Hayden said.
He added that the line between a hobby and a business matters legally: a side hustle is more likely to be a business "where the person is actively seeking profit, taking regular bookings, advertising, invoicing, using an ABN, selling products or building a customer base."
Hayden said outright bans on outside work are hard to defend for most roles. "Employees are generally free to use their own time as they choose, but that freedom is not unlimited," he said, noting that employers have a stronger basis to intervene when a side hustle "targets the same customers, uses the same suppliers" or "relies on confidential information" – a risk he said is most acute in a Fair Work Commission case where a senior employee was dismissed over a confidentiality breach-style scenario, and in "sales, recruitment, technology, professional services, creative, consulting and client-facing" industries.
Building a side hustle policy that will hold up
Rather than a blanket ban, Hayden recommends "rules requiring disclosure or approval for work that competes with the business, affects performance or creates a safety risk," paired with a policy that "should explain the business reason, not simply assert control over private time."
Any disclosure requirement should be clear upfront, he said, and if a conflict does emerge, employers should "identify the actual conflict and record how it affects the business" rather than relying on vague assertions.
Where a genuine problem is established – for example, an employee "servicing the employer's customers privately, quoting against the employer, or using inside knowledge to build their own business" – Hayden said employers have a range of responses available, including "disciplinary action, loss of approval for outside work, termination of employment, or a legal claim."
Where an employee is dishonest, works on a side hustle during paid hours, misuses information or repeatedly breaches their obligations, he said, "the business has every right to dismiss them."
The data suggests this is no longer a niche issue. As the ABS figures show, and as the ABS's own March 2026 data on Australians juggling multiple jobs already signalled, poly-employment has become a structural feature of the Australian labour market rather than a temporary side effect of cost-of-living pressure.
It is also increasingly accepted by employers: a separate industry survey found most Australian employers now back employees' side hustles as a retention tool. For HR leaders, the task ahead is less about stopping side hustles and more about writing policies precise enough to protect the business without overreaching into employees' own time.
