The Latest Work Trend: Over-employment
How some ambitious Americans are secretly working two high-paying jobs to get ahead
I’ve been lurking on Reddit forums about over-employment (OE) lately. OE probably became more prevalent during the pandemic when remote and hybrid work became the norm rather than the exception.
It was also a time where people had to socially distance, spent a ton of time at home, and had to work extra hard to find things to fill their time. So some people naturally thought — if I’m working so hard to fill my time, why not fill it with more work and get paid double for it.
The rapid and high inflation in living costs coming out of the darkest days of the pandemic provided an additional incentive to work an extra job. So did the hot job market, which promised high pay, signing bonuses, and RSUs (stock) from each job.
We should be clear — OE is not a case of someone desperately working two jobs to stay afloat. Rather, these folks tended to work multiple high-paying tech jobs paying at least $100,000 each. Tech jobs, especially on the engineering side, tend to be OE-friendly (as long as your employer doesn’t catch on to the fact that you’re doubly employed), because they don’t require much face time and the work and deliverables can be staggered relatively easily. So…
