The $25 Gig Paid Less Than the $15 Dock: Part-Time Jobs in St. Louis, With the Real Math
Revised October 11, 2026
What are the best part-time jobs in St. Louis?
The strongest picks pay a steady W-2 wage: hospital patient services, which can open a path to full-time, substitute teaching (often mid-$100s a day) and seasonal guest services at places like the Saint Louis Zoo. Retail and food service are the quickest way in. Gig apps like Amazon Flex and Instacart are the most flexible, but their pay comes before gas and taxes. Most W-2 jobs must start at Missouri’s $15.00 minimum. Search Indeed’s part-time filter, jobs.mo.gov and our St. Louis Jobs Board.
Keep reading ↓5:58 on a Saturday morning. The time clock beeps at a warehouse dock in the Hazelwood Logistics Center, and you’re in: cold concrete under your shoes, a box cutter in your back pocket, cardboard and diesel on the air. You drove up from your place in the city while it was still dark. Four hours on the line, then you’re due somewhere else.
A week later the stub lands. Twenty hours at Missouri’s $15.00 minimum is $300 on paper. Social Security and Medicare take $22.95. Because you live in the city, its 1% earnings tax takes $3.00 more, and that tax follows anyone who works a shift inside city limits, too. What reaches your account: $274.05, before any income-tax withholding. No job posting tells you that number.
So on Sunday you try the thing everyone mentions and open a delivery app. Take a four-hour block that really does pay $25 an hour and covers 60 miles. That’s $100 in. At the IRS business mileage rate, 76 cents a mile right now (the IRS adjusts it, sometimes mid-year), those miles use up about $45.60 of your car, and self-employment tax takes roughly another $7.70. You keep about $46. Saturday’s four hours on the dock kept about $55. The $25 job paid less.
The work usually isn’t the hard part. The grind of getting hired is: the same application retyped for the fifth time, a resume uploaded and then keyed in again box by box, then silence. Three moves shorten it. Filter Indeed or jobs.mo.gov to part-time and apply where the shift actually fits your week. Ask a small shop its hourly rate up front, because Missouri retail and service businesses grossing under $500,000 a year don’t have to pay the state minimum. And walk in on day one with your I-9 papers: a U.S. passport, or a driver’s license plus a Social Security card or birth certificate.
One thing you can do today, free: the SLATE Missouri Job Center at 1520 Market Street, Room 3050, downtown (314-589-8000; weekdays, opening at 9 on Wednesdays and closing at 4 on Thursdays and Fridays) does job referrals, resume and interview workshops and free computer time. It also handles federal bonding, the free bond an employer can get when hiring someone with a record.
What does the job have to fit around?
Start from your own limits, not the biggest number on the posting. A student at UMSL, where MetroLink stops right on campus, wants hours that bend around class. A parent wants the shift over before the school pickup line forms. Retirees tend to want a few social mornings a week that use what they already know. Career-changers use a part-time role to test an industry before they jump. And plenty of people want a second income stacked on a full-time job, which means evenings and weekends. Hours, commute, energy. Settle those three first, then chase the pay.
Where the part-time jobs actually are in St. Louis
A handful of categories drive most of the metro’s part-time hiring. Here’s where to apply today, and the catch in each:
- Warehouse & delivery: Scanner beeps and the shriek of a tape gun. Amazon posts shifts for its Hazelwood sortation center and its St. Peters fulfillment center at hiring.amazon.com, and smaller logistics outfits hire for package handling and sorting, often with evening and weekend shifts. The catch: it’s on-your-feet work, and an open dock door in January lets the cold in.
- Healthcare support: A hospital hallway at 11 p.m. is still bright and still busy. Barnes-Jewish posts part-time patient-services, transport and aide openings, steady W-2 work that can lead to full-time. The catch: hospital shifts run nights and weekends too.
- Education: substitute teaching starts with a phone that buzzes before sunrise. Subbing with St. Louis Public Schools and area districts commonly pays in the mid-$100s a day. Missouri issues a substitute certificate if you have 36 college credit hours, or after a 20-hour state-approved online course from providers like Frontline Education or Kelly Education, plus a fingerprint background check. The catch: the calls come early and the days are unpredictable.
- Seasonal & guest services: the Saint Louis Zoo, museums, stadiums and event venues staff up for their busy seasons, and summer is the big wave. Apply a few weeks before the season, while managers are still building the roster.
- Food service: restaurants and coffee shops across the metro hire constantly, often with same-week starts. Missouri lets a tipped job pay a $7.50 base, but tips have to bring you to at least $15.00 an hour, and the employer owes the difference when they don’t.
- Retail: the most flexible on-ramp. Hiring spikes from roughly October through the new year, so apply in September, a few weeks before the rush.
- Gig & rideshare: the most schedule-in-your-own-hands option. Amazon Flex requires you to be 21 and pass a background check. The catch is the one from Sunday: you pay for the car.
Seven part-time roles worth a look
These are real, currently-hiring kinds of part-time work in St. Louis, spanning gig, institutional, and seasonal:
- Amazon Flex delivery - deliver packages on blocks you choose through the Amazon Flex app. You need to be 21+, have a reliable vehicle, and pass a background check. Pay is often quoted around the high-teens to mid-$20s an hour, but it’s 1099 contractor work: earnings vary and are before gas and vehicle wear, so treat any number as an estimate, not a promise.
- Patient services at a hospital - front-desk and patient-support roles at systems like Barnes-Jewish are steady W-2 work with real advancement paths.
- Substitute teacher - St. Louis Public Schools and area districts hire subs on flexible day-by-day schedules; daily pay commonly runs in the mid-$100s per day.
- Instacart shopper - shop and deliver groceries on your own hours via Instacart. Like Flex, it’s contractor gig work - flexible, but earnings vary and come before expenses.
- Zoo guest services - the Saint Louis Zoo hires seasonal and part-time guest-services staff; a great fit if you want a lively, people-facing shift.
- Research or campus roles - universities like Washington University post part-time research and support jobs (some are best suited to enrolled students).
- Retail or food service near you - the quiet workhorse of part-time work: a shop, cafe, or restaurant within a short commute, hiring year-round and hard around the holidays.
What does a part-time job in St. Louis actually pay?
Right now, Missouri’s minimum wage is $15.00 an hour (raised by Proposition A; it has changed almost every January, so check labor.mo.gov for the current rate), so any legitimate W-2 hourly job should start at or above that. Be skeptical of a posting advertising less. On a 20-hour week, a year of paychecks comes to $15,600, under the federal standard deduction for a single filer, so if it’s your only job, little or no federal income tax should come out. Two footnotes from the state: tipped workers can be paid a $7.50 base as long as tips bring them to at least $15.00 an hour, and retail or service businesses with less than $500,000 a year in gross sales don’t have to pay the state minimum, so at a small shop, ask the hourly rate before you say yes. The big exception is gig work - Amazon Flex, Instacart, rideshare and the like are independent-contractor roles, which means no hourly floor, no benefits, and pay that’s quoted before you subtract gas, vehicle wear, and self-employment taxes. Gig work can be genuinely flexible and worth it, but read those “$25/hour” claims as gross, best-case, and variable - not a guaranteed wage.
Where to actually look
Skip the sketchy corners of the internet and start where the real listings are. On the big boards, use the part-time filter: Indeed and Snagajob both let you narrow to part-time, local roles. Go straight to employer career pages for the places you’d actually like to work - a nearby hospital, shop, or restaurant. And don’t overlook the free help: Missouri Job Centers (through jobs.mo.gov) offer no-cost job-search support, computers, and workshops across the metro. You can also browse current local openings right here on our St. Louis Jobs Board’s part-time listings - a directory of local roles, no national-board clutter. The advantage of a local board is exactly that focus: instead of scrolling past hundreds of listings two counties away, you’re seeing roles from St. Louis-area employers who actually want someone nearby.
Random, but: after the shift, here’s where Winchester eats.
Part-time as a foot in the door
A part-time job is often more than a paycheck - it’s a low-risk way to try something on. A career-changer can work a few shifts in a new field before committing to it full-time. A student can turn a campus or hospital job into a full-time offer at graduation. Someone returning to work - after raising kids, after retirement, after a hard chapter - can use part-time hours to rebuild a routine and a recent work reference without diving into 40 hours cold. Plenty of full-time St. Louis careers started as “just a part-time thing.” It’s worth asking a manager, honestly, whether a role has a path to more - a lot of them quietly do. And if you’re coming to part-time work from a particular place in life, we have guides written for exactly that: returning to work after 60, finding work with a record, and part-time work for retirees.
Ready to see what’s open? Browse current part-time listings on our St. Louis Jobs Board, or explore the full board for every kind of local role.
Still in school? We keep a separate guide to summer jobs for students.
If you run a shop, cafe or service that needs part-time help, list your business with us and post your openings, so the same listing that brings you applicants brings you more customers too.
From the holiday rush to summer at the Zoo
If you only want work for a stretch - or you’re trying to land somewhere for the long haul - the seasonal hiring waves are your friend. From roughly October through the new year, retail, warehouse, and delivery employers across the metro staff up hard for the holidays, and many of those “temporary” roles turn permanent for people who show up reliably. Summer brings its own wave at the Zoo, museums, pools, and event venues. The trick is timing: apply a few weeks before the season starts, when employers are building their rosters, rather than in the thick of it when the good shifts are already taken.
Making part-time work actually work
A few habits keep a part-time job from becoming a headache. If you’re piecing together more than one gig, guard against overlap and burnout - two jobs that both want “open availability” will collide. For gig and 1099 work, set aside a slice of every payment for taxes (nobody withholds them for you) and track your mileage, since it’s deductible. Keep your availability honest with employers from day one; being the reliable part-timer who actually works their stated hours is how you get first pick of shifts and the eventual full-time offer. And protect the reason you took part-time work in the first place - the flexibility, the time with family, the room to study - instead of letting the hours quietly creep until it’s a full-time job at part-time pay.
One more piece of hard-won advice: treat a part-time job like it matters, because it does. The part-timer who shows up on time, learns the work, and is easy to schedule around gets the better shifts, the raise, the reference, and the first call when a full-time spot opens. In a metro where a lot of people are half-heartedly clocking in, simply being reliable is a genuine edge - and it’s the thing most likely to turn “a little extra income” into wherever you want to go next.
The fake-check scam aimed at part-time job seekers
Wherever there are job seekers, there are scammers - and part-time and gig listings are a favorite target. A few rules keep you safe. A legitimate employer never asks you to pay to get hired - not for “training,” equipment, a starter kit, or a background check. Be wary of any “job” that promises a lot of money for little work, pressures you to act immediately, or communicates only from a personal Gmail address instead of a company domain. The classic trap is the fake-check overpayment: you’re “hired,” sent a check to buy supplies, told to wire back the extra - then the check bounces and you’re on the hook. Never share your Social Security number or bank details before you’ve verified a real offer. When something feels off, it usually is; you can report a suspected scam at ReportFraud.ftc.gov, and stick to the real listings on the boards, employer pages, and job centers above.
How to choose the one that fits
Once you have options, weigh them against your real life, not just the wage. Map the hours against your fixed commitments - a slightly lower-paying job you can actually make every shift beats a higher one that collides with class or childcare. Factor the commute honestly (a 40-minute drive each way quietly eats your hourly rate). For anyone building toward something, ask whether the role offers growth - some part-time hospital, retail, or campus jobs open doors to full-time or a foot in a new field. And read the fine print: W-2 vs. 1099, whether hours are guaranteed or “as needed,” and whether there’s any benefit (even a discount or free transit) that sweetens a modest wage.
Whether you can make a living as a tour guide depends heavily on the season, but it is worth a mention here because the skills it asks for - comfort with strangers, local knowledge, a flexible calendar - overlap with most of the part-time work on this page.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much do part-time jobs in St. Louis pay?
Missouri’s minimum wage is $15.00 an hour right now (the state posts the current rate at labor.mo.gov), so legitimate W-2 part-time jobs should start at or above that. Substitute teaching often pays in the mid-$100s per day. Gig roles like Amazon Flex and Instacart quote higher hourly figures, but those are contractor earnings - variable and before gas, vehicle wear, and taxes.
What is the 3 month rule for jobs?
The idea that it takes about three months to judge whether a job fits - long enough to get past the learning curve, short enough to leave before it defines your resume. Treat it as a checkpoint for yourself, not a rule anyone else enforces.
Can you make a living as a tour guide?
Seasonally in a city like this, it is closer to supplementary income than a salary. The pattern matches most flexible local work: quoted rates look reasonable per hour, but 1099 contractor status means fuel, wear and self-employment tax come out of it.
How old do you have to be to get a job in St. Louis?
Fourteen, for most jobs. Missouri bars kids under 14 from regular work outside farm, entertainment and casual jobs, and 14- and 15-year-olds can work with limits on hours and job types (they typically need a work certificate from their school district). At 16 those hour limits drop away, though some roles set their own floor, like Amazon Flex at 21.
Is 20 hours a week part-time a lot?
No, it’s a middle-of-the-road part-time load. There’s no legal line for part-time, but employers treat 30 or more hours a week as full-time for health-coverage rules, so 20 leaves plenty of room. Picture four five-hour shifts, say two weeknight closes and both weekend mornings. At Missouri’s $15.00 minimum, that brings in about $300 a week before taxes, a solid fit next to classes or childcare.
Need a hand with your search? Our guide to where to get free help finding work in St. Louis covers the job centers and programs that will coach you at no cost.
Written by a dedicated team of St. Louis locals who live, work, and play right here in the St. Louis metro. Founder Lane Forman and team are committed to building the region’s most trusted directory by verifying listings and connecting local businesses with loyal customers across Missouri and Illinois.