Moonlighting and Freelancing are in news these days, but for a reason.
Moonlighting is the act of working on the side, often in the evening or during the night after the normal working hours. These secondary job(s) are often held secretly, that is behind the back of the main employer.
On the other side, freelancing is a type of self-employment in which Instead of being employed permanently by a company, individuals work as self-employed persons, delivering their services on a contract or project basis for companies, businesses and other individual employers.
Unlike freelancing which is flexible enough to allow an individual to set his/ her own working timelines, moonlighting is somehow fixed as it’s not different from normal 8am to 5pm employment. This means that in moonlighting, the employee works under the employer’s conditions and timelines.
Is moonlighting a side hustle?
Even though it’s some sort of permanent employment, moonlighting is practically a side hustle just like freelancing for individuals who still hold primary jobs. This inference is based on the fact that a side hustle is any job that an individual take as they still hold their primary job.
Is moonlighting worth it?
Moonlighting has several benefits which may make it a risk worthy taking. These benefits include
- Earning extra cash- moonlighting can give you the chance to make more money on top of their primary earnings. This can help one sort out their bills and quell financial constraints.
- Expanding opportunities- Moonlighting can help you to expand opportunities that’s by exposing you to more fields
- Learning and advancing new skills- moonlighting can give you the chance to learns new skills or advance already gotten skills. This in cases where the secondary job(s) is different from the primary job.
- Building bigger social and professional network- Moonlighting can give you the chance to interact with people that is both professionally and outside the office. This can give you new leads and connections.
However, moonlighting has some cons which may make it a bad risk. These include
- Less priority on the primary job hence risking primary job and career- moonlighting can lead to divided focus as you will have to give your attention to different jobs which is likely to be unsustainable. This can lead to dismal performance of duties in both the primary job and the side hustle
- Second job may drain your stamina- considering that moonlighting is done after the primary working hours, it can badly drain your stamina. This is because you will end up resting less and thus making it hard to regain.
- Less family time- being an after-job hustle, moonlighting can give you no chance to spend time with your family. This can lead to a stale parent child relationship.
- Work-life balance may be an issue- moonlighting can make it hard for you to balance your life in terms of life-work balance in which because moonlighting will eventually make you to spend more time working and have little time for personal exposures like traveling, having some fun and easing up.
In the bottom line, you should evaluate your personal situations against its pros and cons to determine whether or not moonlighting is a worthy risk to take.
Is moonlighting wrong?
In judging Moonlighting and Freelancing on whether or not moonlighting is wrong, we should base our argumentations on its consequences.
In instances where moonlighting promotes good for both the employer and employee, then we cannot rule it out as wrong. However, in instances where the cons over rule the pros then moonlighting turns out to be wrong.
Is moonlighting legal?
Moonlighting is not illegalized by any constitutional laws or acts in many countries. However, moonlighting can be illegal at personal level in regard to the employer-employee contract terms, thus making it a breech of contract.
So basically, the legality or illegality of moonlighting is based on job contracts at employer-employee level. This means that if the employment contract terms prohibit the employee from engaging in secondary jobs, legal action can be taken if the employer by chance finds out that his\her employee(s) engage in moonlighting.
