About 79% of remote or hybrid employees are working two jobs at once, according to a 2022 Resume Builder survey of 1,250 full-time remote workers in the U.S. Of those, 48% are employed by another company full or part time and 39% are self-employed.
The trend of working two remote jobs has become so popular that it inspired a website called Overemployed, which describes itself as a “community of professionals looking to work two remote jobs, earn extra income and achieve financial freedom.” The site features posts on topics such as how employees get caught working two jobs, fighting lifestyle creep while making $600,000 a year and understanding how background checks work for multiple employment.
Is it legal or ethical to work two full-time jobs? Can you have two full-time jobs that pay a lot – and what are the tax implications of such an arrangement? Read on to learn how working two remote jobs can affect you.
See: 7 Best Part-Time Remote-Work Jobs
Is Working 2 Remote Jobs Legal?
Before deciding whether to pursue work outside of your full-time job, it’s important to have a clear understanding of whether it’s legal to do so.
Heather Weine Brochin, partner and chair of the employment and labor group at Day Pitney LLP, says the law does not prevent employees from holding more than one job. In fact, she says some state laws prohibit employers from interfering with employees who want to hold a different job outside of their ordinary employment hours through “moonlighting.”
Still, there are potential legal complications for employees who work multiple remote jobs at once, Brochin says.
“From a legal perspective, holding two positions remotely (at the same time) is duplicitous behavior that could be challenged if the positions overlap and employer intellectual property or confidential information is being misused between and among positions,” she says.
Is Working 2 Remote Jobs Ethical?
While it may be legal to work two full-time remote jobs simultaneously, it may not be ethical.
“In my opinion, the behavior is unethical as it involves stealing time from an employer – meaning if a person is paid for 40 hours of work but is not actually devoting those 40 hours to exclusively one employer's work, the person is getting paid for time not worked,” Brochin says.
Brochin stresses that while it’s nothing new for someone to work different shifts of different hourly jobs or to have a part-time hourly position in the evening, some employers with remote or hybrid work models are concerned that employees may be committing time theft by working for more than one employer at the same time.
“What is new is that employees may be holding full-time positions at the same time during the same working hours,” she says. “These employees may be multitasking but are certainly depriving each employer of their full business time and attention.”
