The buzzword in India’s IT industry apart from the fear of recession and job loss has been the topic of Moonlighting.

It is under constant talk and after Wipro sending off 300 employees for Moonlighting, I thought it’s the right time to share more the details about the topic.

What is moonlighting?

You have a regular Job 9-5. And once you are done with it, you take up another job or assignment. This is what Moonlighting is all about.

Before we start, let’s take a moment to think about the below questions:

• Is Moonlighting legal?
• Is it Ethical?
• How many people are currently moonlighting?
• Is this the future of work?

I will be answering all of these question by taking a deep dive into each one of them.

But first, from where does the term Moonlighting comes from. You could be doing any sort of job and taking another assignment after your schedule at regular job in the evening when Moon is up and you work under Moon light, so the term Moonlighting.

Why do people do it?

People are doing this because of all sorts of reasons. To name a few:

• To maximise their talent
• To make most of their potential
• To create an additional income stream
• Because of their passion in any thing apart from their regular job
• To increase their creativity

And this is getting complemented by the growing opportunity available to people. There are multiple job portals which are offering jobs. We have some of them listed:

• Fiverr
• Upwork
• Toptal
• Simplyhired
• Jooble

Not only that, the jobs are available for all the skillsets that you can think of. There are writing jobs, marketing, graphic design, video editing. The best part they do not check if you have the degree to perform.

Social media has made moonlighting very easy and WFH has given people extra time to do by saving time of travel and the chitchat that happens at the water cooler.

The other and most prominent reason is the Indian tech workers are generally under paid and we will discuss in details in the later part of the video.

Just to point out this has been a common practice in India.

• School teachers giving private tuitions after regular work hours
• Doctors having private practice.
• CEOs and top executives moonlighting as Consultants
• It is being done by all levels and in all sectors.

This is the common practice outside India. As of the report of 2015 7 and half million Americans were holding another job. That is 5% of the total workforce and during pandemic it has gone up by a lot.

What is the debate all about?

The reason being, someone found out one guy was working not 2 or 3 but 7 jobs. Now, that’s not what anyone would have thought while doing Moonlighting.

For the people going against it say,:

• It will lead to conflict of interest
• Breach of confidentiality
• Misusing the company resources
• Lead to Absenteeism
• Fatigue
• and Burnouts

But the question is, if I can do, why shouldn’t I? If it is not getting in the way of primary job.

What does the law say?

Moonlighting is a new trend and the politicians still haven’t wrapped their heads with the laws regarding the IT industry let alone thing about Moonlighting.

Indian law forbids Dual Employment which is governed by Factories Act of 1948. Yea, that’s ancient. The law forbids Dual employment but it only regulates the labours in factories. It holds the ground correctly as any person will not be able to endure the physical strength to do more than one job

But this is the age of technology not manual labour. Right now, there are no laws which say anything about whether you can do it or not.

That’s not all, we have law which binds us to our Job contract though. So, the terms and conditions of your job contract is going to decide whether or not you can moonlight.

You should be in lookout for the following two laws:

• Single Employment Clause - It is going to restrict you to just one law
• Non Compete Clause - Prohibits you to work with a competitor

If the above 2 laws are not in your job contract you can safely moonlight.

But, let me ask you this - how is the company going to react if you work as a marketing person in your day job but is taking up a photography job at night or an IT engineer in day and financial influencer by night.

It should not matter to anyone what I do with my spare time. Let alone restrict me on how I live my life.

This is the same in countries like US and UK, where if you are paying your taxes on the income earned, its all good.

What about Ethics?

Let’s talk about ethics.

It’s okay to restrict an employee if the work which does for you should not enable your competitor or leak confidential informations. But the company should not even bother if they are working on their own project apart from regular job or working in totally different role which they are getting paid for. They are not going to do any harm and they are doing in their own time. This is the reason the companies should come up with valid feasible laws for their employees.

Now, we should talk about something that is being totally ignored by all the media houses and bloggers.

If you have been following the debate then you will find out most of the details have been covered by the ethics of an Employee and no one has ever talked about the ethics of an Employer.

Chairman of Wipro bluntly said Moonlight is just cheating and they did fired 300 employees for doing so. The COO of the another tech giant TCS said in an open discussion about the ethics of working multiple jobs but never bothered about the reasons why the employees of his company are forced to do so. On top of that he directly hinted that there is abundance of talent, if it’s not you someone else will work.

Today let me point out on what the ethics of Employer should be. Do you know why getting a job in TCS and Infosys was dream job in 2003-04. Because the initial salary for a fresher was around 3 LPA. Now, do you know why no one is satisfied with the same job almost after 2 decades, same reason: the initial salary is still 3 LPA. After 2 decades of inflation, growth and what not - the same salary. And it is only for the engineers and workers who on comparison of salary has become like a bounded labour. Salary of a fresher is same in 20 years but the companies are raising the salary of executives by average 80-100% every year.

Where does the ethics go? Do you mean to say that just because people need the job you will buy them for pennies.

This is where the government has failed its citizens. Companies are demanding more engagement with minimum 9 hours of work with the extension is assumed as default. On top of that you are not allowed to compliment your income. live in fear of getting caught and be fired. There is no minimum wage for the skilled workers. It was okay in the start of the IT revolution in the country but now the country has matured enough to put some restrictions so that common people can also reap the benefits of a progressing country.

It is time for new labour laws to come. Having time duration, pay bands and workers unions to fight against the oppression of the giants.