Moonlighting debate divides tech industry

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Moonlighting debate divides tech industry

The moonlighting debate in India has divided the IT industry, as many top companies are against the practice, while companies like Wipro, Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services TCS have criticised the idea, but some firms and top officials have supported the trend highlighting that captive work models are not for the modern techies.

Like the IT companies, Twitter users are divided over work ethics and moonlighting. Some believe that moonlighting will have long-term implications on the work record, despite the fact that most users favoured moonlighting for various reasons.

One user wrote: "You can easily make 50 to 100 per hour." If you work for 40 hours, you make 4000 3,20, 000 Rs per month. Netizens said moonlight could be considered legal if it is given permission from the employer, because of rising costs, inflation, and survival.

Some netizens even questioned how CEOs, founders, and other high-profile individuals can hold multiple positions in sister companies. They said that this practice should also be called moonlighting.

The moonlighting concept refers to employees taking up side gigs apart from their primary job to earn extra money. The concept became popular during the epidemic after many firms adopted a remote-working model.

In contrast, the Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar has backed moonlighting and said firms should adopt the employee-entrepreneur mindset of today s techies.

While Wipro sacked 300 employees, Infosys warned its staff that working on a second job while having a contract with them can lead to termination. IBM has made it clear that dual employment practice is not acceptable and ethically right. According to Ganapathy Subramaniam, Moonlighting is an ethical issue, we need to inculcate the ethics and idea of being right and if we make something like this for short-term gains, we will lose out in the long-term.