Government employees caught up in the record shutdown are no doubt beginning to wonder whether it's time to chuck what used to be a dependable lifelong career and head for the private sector in search of pay that's actually paid.

And that might not be such a bad idea, says compensation software and data company PayScale in its report Feeling the Pinch from the Government Shutdown? Maybe it's Time to Switch Jobs.

According to PayScale, many government employees possess skills that are currently hot in the labor market, so this might be a good time to transition from the feds over to civilian/private-sector employment—depending on one's skill set.

With numerous FDA and EPA employees able to boast skills that include financial modeling, risk management and risk compliance, and with federal IT professionals up on “hot” programming languages, it could be a walk in the park, so to speak, to find alternate work to a job that either locks you out or mandates that you work without pay.

Considering that the alternative appears to be launching oneself onto the gig economy to avoid eviction and starvation, workers might be ready to pitch a formerly reliable job in the quest for more immediate salvation. An NBC News report highlights how tough it's getting for furloughed government workers, and those obliged to keep working without a paycheck (CNN host Don Lemon compared the latter requirement to “slavery” or “indentured servitude”).

Dog walking, babysitting, snow shoveling, bartending, driving for Uber or Lyft, making and selling cheesecakes and even making props for marching bands are among the odd jobs that furloughed and unpaid workers are taking on in the quest to feed their families and keep the rent or mortgage paid—not to mention the lights on and the heat running.

Some places are finding it harder to get by than others, due to the plethora of government workers not being paid. One such place is New London, Connecticut, known as the “Coast Guard City.” The Huffington Post reports that 42,000 Coast Guard members nationwide are without pay during the shutdown—paid as they are through the Department of Homeland Security, and not the Department of Defense as other armed forces are—but the impact of the loss of pay for some 2,000 local Coast Guardsmen and women, who patrol the miles of coastline from New York to Rhode Island, is heavy.

Yet that's not all. The U.S. Coast Guard Academy is based in New London, and both faculty and students are affected by the shutdown, with the approximately 1,000 students not getting their biweekly stipends.

And while the latter are still getting fed at the mess hall, and Coast Guard personnel and their families are able to take advantage of a pop-up food pantry set up by the Southeastern Connecticut chapter of the U.S. Coast Guard Chief Petty Officers Association, the absence of all that money from the New London economy is hurting all sorts of businesses dependent on Coast Guard trade. And while local restaurants are suffering from the shutdown and loss of business, they're still doing their best to kick in and offer discounts to those affected.

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Federal workers eyeing gig work, private sector

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