A debate has ensued in the IT sector following the comments made by Wipro’s Executive Chairman, Rishad Premji, on ‘moonlighting’. Moonlighting is referred to the practice of taking projects or other work after work hours to make extra bucks.

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In a recent tweet, Premji said that moonlighting is “cheating, plain and simple” which led to social media users taking to different platforms to voice their opinions on the practice. IT sector veteran Mohandas Pai also disagreed with Premji.

There is a lot of chatter about people moonlighting in the tech industry. This is cheating - plain and simple.

— Rishad Premji (@RishadPremji) August 20, 2022

In an interview with Business Today, the former director of IT giant Infosys, said, “No, moonlighting is not cheating.” He explained that an employment contract is between an employer who pays an employee for working ‘n’ number of hours in a day for the company.

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During that time the employee has to abide by the rules and conditions of the employer including client confidentiality. At this time, the employee can’t work for anybody else. However, what the employee does after this period is his/her freedom. They can do whatever they want.

The trend of ‘moonlighting’ or working other jobs while working for a company to earn extra income gained popularity and scope during the COVID-19 pandemic when the office shifted to home.

Mohandas Pai, Chairman of Aarin Capital, also stressed that freshers from India’s IT sector are being exploited for the past 10 years. He said that there has been no increase in compensation and seniors in the IT sector are paid significantly higher than freshers. According to Pai, this has led to several issues, like an increasing attrition rate, moonlighting, reluctance to return to the office, and several other issues.

What is moonlighting?

Moonlighting is the practice of working a second job or freelance projects outside the regular business hours to earn extra income. When an employee works a normal 9 to 5 job as the primary source of income, and at night they work for another company or project for extra income, he or she is said to be moonlighting.

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While business leaders consider it as an issue, there is no overarching law explicitly explaining the legality or illegality of moonlighting by IT sector professionals.

As per a Business Today report, if an employee is caught moonlighting the company can press charges only if it is in violation of the employment contract and there is evidence that the employee has been moonlighting.

(Edited by : Sudarsanan Mani)