The hidden world of second jobs

A friend once proudly told me he had six jobs. He sustained such a life-style for several years long after the need for extra money disappeared. I never knew how he did it – as he was also a long-distance commuter. Apparently, after he got off his train at night he would work two hours as a relief barman and then walk round to a hotel to manage it until midnight.

As employers we are in control of working time in our own organisations, but have very little power to stop our employees taking second – or even multiple – jobs. Last year 8.8 million people in the European Union officially had at least a second job. The number is also growing – with the numbers up 20% since 2003 largely due to massive changes in Germany (+120%), France (+80%) and the Netherlands (+45%).

Due to undeclared work the numbers of people with second jobs is also likely to be far higher than the official statistics. For instance in Spain, Poland, Estonia and Bulgaria the numbers formally holding such jobs has barely changed over the last decade – yet these are the very countries where EU estimates for the size of the “informal economy” are amongst the highest in Europe. In fact, in Bulgaria informal work accounted in 2012 for 31.9% of GDP and in Estonia 28.2%.

I guess that low wages and the “tax take” are the main driving forces for the incidence of second jobs in some sectors and economies. A number of countries have tried to discourage employees from taking jobs during their annual holidays by requiring employers to pay additional holiday pay – over and above normal pay. Last year Estonia introduced a public database so that employees could check if their employers were handing over tax and social security deductions to the authorities and the Latvian tax authorities started to target sectors where undeclared work was known to be rife. However, this does little for the problem of increased second jobs in the formal economy. Working time rules may annoy some employers, but a far bigger issue is workplace stress and exhaustion caused by second jobs.

Perhaps a useful starting point would be for employers to survey their own staff to find out the incidence of secondary employment and to discover the reasons for such a practice. Sometimes it will arise quite naturally because of a family business which the employee cannot avoid when they return home. In other cases it may be because of family commitments abroad putting pressure on immigrant workers – but it might also be, like my friend, due to a workaholic life style.

There is little point in simply inserting a clause in employment contracts stating that employees may not undertake second jobs or requiring such jobs to be declared to the company. This may so readily ignored and if the company tried to tackle it head on the underlying causes would require a draconian policy to control it. Yet it is something all employers need to address and the starting point is to discover how big the incidence is and what is driving it. Only then can appropriate actions be taken. The rewards for getting it right are many fold – including greater employee engagement, reduced stress, better retention, reduced absenteeism and improved productivity.

The Federation has recently established “fsl research and consultancy” to provide customised support for multinational enterprises. The initial focus areas for fsl includes ‘secondary work impact assessments’ and ‘strategies to improve employee engagement’. Let us know if you would like to discuss these issues.

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