By Samannay Biswas
Amid minimal salary hikes and deepening job market uncertainty, Indian IT companies are facing a renewed challenge鈥攎oonlighting. This trend of professionals covertly working multiple jobs has triggered a significant uptick in background verification checks in 2025, with firms such as OnGrid and AuthBridge flagging thousands of cases involving dual employment, especially in the IT services sector, said a TOI report. The issue has grown acute since the pandemic reshaped workplace models. According to data shared by OnGrid, in just the first six months of 2025, it completed 23,000 employment verifications鈥87 per cent of last year鈥檚 total. Of these, 2,900 checks revealed moonlighting, up sharply from 2,201 such instances in all of 2024. OnGrid’s Chief Business Officer, Manav Jain, noted that “remote and freelance work models made it easier for people to hold second jobs unnoticed.” The company’s verification process includes tracking Universal Account Numbers (UANs), employment histories, and overlapping PF records. In one extreme case, OnGrid discovered a candidate who had allegedly been associated with 50 employers in a single year, and had simultaneous employment records at 10 companies, including multinationals and startups. Moonlighting has become particularly prevalent in regions with dense IT populations such as Telangana, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu. Background verification firm AuthBridge reported that 5 out of every 100 candidates it screened in 2025 were engaged in dual employment鈥攏early 90 per cent of whom came from the IT services sector. In one instance, a developer was found to be employed by five companies at once, including two direct competitors. This was uncovered through a combination of Provident Fund records and Form 26AS, which records tax-deducted income, said the TOI report. 鈥淢oonlighting was largely under the radar before Covid,鈥 said Rahul Maheshwari, former Google employee and founder of Linux Socials, an edtech platform. 鈥淣ow many professionals are teaching or freelancing to cushion against job instability. I have 20 instructors from top MNCs moonlighting as part-time faculty.鈥 Maheshwari said he was once asked to stop publishing tutorials online because his employer deemed it moonlighting, eventually leading him to resign. The issue is not new. In 2022, Wipro Chairman Rishad Premji disclosed that the company had terminated 300 employees for working for rivals while on Wipro鈥檚 payroll, calling moonlighting 鈥渃heating鈥攑lain and simple.鈥 Now, companies have introduced stricter employee checks, including scanning employment timelines, cross-referencing PF activity, and leveraging AI tools for anomaly detection. Flagged cases are escalated to clients, whose HR and compliance teams decide on further action based on internal risk thresholds and company policies. Industry insiders attribute the rise to stagnant compensation, limited lateral hiring, and remote work鈥檚 enabling structure. Employees, facing economic uncertainty, are increasingly seeking second sources of income, often via freelance, teaching, or contract gigs. While employers stress transparency and exclusivity in contracts, many workers argue that as long as their productivity is unaffected, secondary roles should be permissible鈥攅specially in a volatile job climate. The moonlighting dilemma has sparked broader discussions on corporate policy, employee rights, and surveillance. As hybrid work persists, and economic pressure mounts, the IT industry may have to walk a fine line between operational security and workforce flexibility.