💸 43% Of Brits Have A Side Hustle

📰 Industry News

• Etsy sellers have long complained about shoppers abusing coupons, now, Etsy is cracking down on coupon misuse. Expiry dates will be brought in to stop shoppers from misusing them. (Modern Retail)

• FOOTASYLUM has reported a year of ‘record growth’, with sales rising 7% to £320m. Boosted by the expansion of new digitally-led stores, including an omnichannel POS system that enables their customers to shop seamlessly online and in-store. (Retail Gazette)

• More news on The Body Shop administration, with a further 75 stores to close, resulting in nearly 500 job losses over the coming weeks. (Sky News)

• Vinted acquires Danish competitor Trendsales, with the view to strengthen its position in the Nordic market. Vinted only launched in Denmark last September, with Trendsales being Denmark’s largest second-hand marketplace. (Ecommerce News)

• Elon Musk is no longer the world's richest man, being overtaken by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, whose wealth now exceeds $200 billion (Marca)

💷 The Most Common Side Hustles In 2024

According to the latest data released by the team at Finder, in 2024, a striking 43% of Brits are diversifying their income through side hustles, amidst the cost of living crisis.

With average weekly earnings of £207, side hustles range from dog walking to online sales, highlighting a gender and generational divide in the hustle economy.

Here are some of their key findings:

• Millennials lead the way in side hustle earnings, contrasting sharply with the Silent Generation in last place, showing a significant generational shift in how money is made through secondary income streams.

  

  Source: Finder.com

• More than 2/3rds (68%) of Gen-Zers have a side hustle, while 65% of millennials have one, as do 40% of Gen X.

• Around half of men (49%) and just over a third of women (37%) make money from side hustles.

• The average side hustle income adds up to around £900/month or £10,800/year.

• A quarter of Brits have a side hustle which earns between £1 and £200 per week.

What Are The Most Popular Side Hustles?

According to Finders research, the most popular side hustles in the UK fall into these categories:

1. Selling old or refurbished items

This could be through sites such as Vinted, which has made it easy to profit from your second-hand clothes, either by selling your own or buying and selling vintage items from Charity shops.

Alternatively, selling refurbished electrical goods such as mobile phones is another popular option amongst tech-savvy entrepreneurs.

2. Creating content

Becoming a social media influencer has become increasingly accessible through the rise of Instagram and TikTok, with some kids even citing it as their dream job. It’s now common for content creators, particularly Gen Z and Gen X, to be earning money through their social media accounts.

But creating content doesn’t have to be influencer-based. We’ve seen the rise of alternative forms of content creation, such as email newsletters such as this one I run through Beehiiv, along with the likes of vlogging, blogging, creating UGC content on Fiverr and even through pay-to-view platforms such as OnlyFans.

If you’re interested in being a content creator, specifically growing and monetising an email newsletter audience, I use a platform called beehiiv. Be sure to check out my in-depth beehiiv newsletter review for everything you need to know and more.

3. Creating products and selling them

The rapid growth of online selling platforms such as Shopify and Etsy has seen a huge rise in self-made entrepreneurs selling their own products. From soy candles to digital art, there is a vast amount of Brits who sell their products for extra income.

4. Part-time work and manual labour

With the rising cost of living, many have turned to monetising their skills or taking a second job around their main income. Common examples are private tutoring, proofreading, making deliveries and constructing flatpack furniture.

The Bottom Line: The surge in people taking up side hustles in the UK stems from the need for financial stability and entrepreneurial ambition. Access to secondary income through online businesses has never been easier with the likes of Fiverr, Vinted, Etsy and Shopify enabling the creation of more digital entrepreneurs, and is a trend that is only likely to continue.

🏛️ Musk Sues OpenAI, Who Hit Back With Email Leak

In a ground-breaking lawsuit. Elon Musk is suing OpenAI, accusing the organisation and its CEO, Sam Altman, of shifting their focus away from developing AI for humanity to focus instead on profit maximisation.

But OpenAI has hit back in a big way.

• Elon Musk, a founding member of OpenAI's establishment, claims that Open AI and its CEO, Sam Altman, have forsaken the founding agreement in favour of commercial gains.

• The recent partnership between OpenAI and Microsoft is at the heart of Musk's concerns, with allegations that it has transformed OpenAI into a profit-driven entity.

• In response, OpenAI have released a post, outlining their commitment to developing AI for humanity, while leaking emails from Musk

• The OpenAI blog post outlines that not only did Musk support to creation of a for-profit entity of OpenAI which could ‘attach to Tesla as its cash-cow‘, but he also demanded ‘absolute control’ over the company.

• Elon soon chose to leave OpenAI, saying that OpenAI’s probability of success was zero and that he planned to build an AGI competitor within Tesla.

Musk’s lawsuit is the latest instalment of displaying his dislike for OpenAI. But the email leak would have no doubt caught him by surprise. So far Musk looks to have come off worse out of the exchange, but it’s still not clear how this case will plan out and it has a long course to run yet.

📜 The Budget: What It Means For The Economy

Yesterday, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt unveiled his 2024 Spring Budget that promises to reshape the landscape for small businesses, the hospitality industry, and the broader UK workforce.

With a vision aimed at stimulating economic growth through lower taxes and kickstarting the Conservative’s election campaign, this budget aims to set a new economic course for the nation, offering both challenges and opportunities for brands operating within the UK.

Key Points From The Spring Budget:

• National Insurance Cut: The Chancellor announced a reduction from 10% to 8%, saving the average worker £450 per year, signalling a significant relief for workers and a boost to disposable income.

• Hospitality Sector Boost: In a move welcomed by pubs and the broader hospitality sector, alcohol duty is frozen until February 2025, preventing a planned 3% rise in August.

• Extended Fuel Duty Cut: The 5p reduction on fuel duty, originally set to end this month, has been extended, offering continued relief against the backdrop of rising fuel prices.

• VAT Threshold Increase for Small Businesses: The threshold for VAT payments has been raised from £85,000 to £90,000, aiming to lessen the administrative and financial burden on small businesses.

• Innovations in Savings: A new 'British ISA' allows for an additional £5,000 investment, encouraging UK savers to invest in high-growth sectors and providing these sectors with crucial expansion capital.

• Green Energy and Creative Industries Investment: The Chancellor earmarked £120m for green energy projects and acknowledged the creative industry's role in boosting tourism.

• Back to Work Initiatives: Measures to encourage workforce participation include expanding free childcare to 30 hours a week for children under five, and addressing job shortages without relying on migration.

• Vaping and Tobacco Tax Reforms: A new levy on vaping is introduced alongside a one-off increase in tobacco duty, aiming to balance public health concerns with financial incentives for quitting smoking.

• Tax System Overhauls: Reforms include abolishing the furnished holiday lettings regime and adjusting air passenger duty, alongside abolishing the non-domiciled tax regime to ensure fairness and competitiveness.

Overall, this was a reasonably safe budget, but with new legislation on National Insurance contributions and a freeze to fuel tax, it is a welcome one nonetheless. Will it be enough to keep the UK Conservative government in power at the next general election? That seems unlikely but anything can happen on polling day.

⚙️ Google Rolls Out March Core Web Update

Google has just unveiled a substantial Core Update aimed at significantly enhancing the quality of its search results and clamping down on "unhelpful" content.

This latest initiative is a part of Google's ongoing efforts to provide users with more valuable, high-quality information while minimising the visibility of low-quality, unoriginal and spammy content.

Key Takeaways:

• Algorithm Enhancements: Google's algorithm has been refined to identify better and promote high-quality, original content, ensuring users find the most useful information.

• Reducing Low-Quality Content: The update is expected to diminish low-quality, unoriginal content by 40%, making a considerable dent in the presence of spammy material in search results.

• New Spam Policies: Google introduced stricter spam policies targeting manipulative practices such as scaled content abuse, site reputation abuse, and expired domain abuse, aiming to eliminate these low-quality content strategies from its search results.

The update will take a month to roll out fully, and search rankings are expected to fluctuate significantly during this time. If you notice a hit in your website traffic, don’t panic. Run an audit and double down on user-first content and follow Google's best practices.

This update will likely impact AI-generated sites if they are unoriginal and of poor quality.

For more information on this update, check out the Google Search Central Blog.