Overemployment: a problem or the new normal in Russian-speaking IT? Part II

who does it and why
how it affects the main job
whether employer policies make a difference
what works for business in the current situation

Kira Kuzmenko

CEO NEWHR

The topic of overemployment became widely discussed in 2022, when the IT bubble burst, companies started mass layoffs, and for the first time in many years IT specialists found themselves in a situation where there were fewer vacancies than candidates. At the same time, IT salaries had grown significantly during the "fat years" of 2019−2021, and workers' expectations, of course, stayed at the same level.

That was when it became clear that some people were ready to deceive employers outright — combining 2 or more full-time jobs or making up the income they needed with side jobs outside working hours. Striking cases of this kind appeared on the market, and everyone started talking about the problem at once.

In 2024-2025 the topic has not gone away, and we at NEWHR decided to find out whether the devil is as black as our collective imagination paints him. We surveyed 3,169 IT specialists (both employees and employers) to learn first-hand what is happening on the market now.

Read topics 1−4
Topics 5−8 are on this page
Go to the conclusions

About the study

How many? Who? From where?

The study was conducted as an online survey. Respondents were recruited through NEWHR's online media, partner channels and our own respondent base.

3,169 people

3,031 employees
138 employers

21 specializations

Backend | Desktop | Embedded development
Analytics
Testing
HR | Recruiting | HR-DevRel
Frontend | Fullstack development
Product management
Project management
And others*

6 grades

Junior (Junior&Intern)
Middle
Senior
Team lead
Head of Departments
Top Manager

4 types of companies

Russian
Partly Russian (operate abroad; founded by people from Russian-speaking markets)
Foreign local (operate in the market of a single country)
Foreign international (operate in many countries)
* See all specializations of the survey participants
Technical management | Software architecture
Infrastructure | DevOps | SRE | NetEng | InfoSec
Mobile development
Design | 3D | animation | web | UX/UI/CX
Digital | Offline marketing
Data Science | ML | AI
Data Engineering
Top management | Founder
Content | SMM | Technical content
GameDev
Sales | BizDev
IT-Support
PR
Production

Study terminology

Explaining the words

What we found: the many meanings of the term

The term overemployment (a common Russian translation is "сверхзанятость", literally "over-employment") has become widespread in Russian-speaking IT. It is used for the phenomenon that in everyday speech is called a "side job" and in academic terminology "secondary employment".

In the international context, however, overemployment is understood more narrowly — as a combination of two or more full-time jobs without the employers' knowledge. In this context the term takes on a potentially negative connotation.

The phenomenon itself is firmly associated with processes such as the hybridization and precarization of employment, and is seen as a marker of the systemic transformation of the labor market over the last 10 years.

Our approach to the study — In this study we use the term overemployment in a broad sense, meaning both overtime and secondary employment in general (side jobs).
However, we place a special focus on "true" overemployment — an additional full-time job that is hidden from the employer.
We want to say a huge thank you to everyone who took part in our study and helped us better understand this multifaceted phenomenon of today's labor market. We invite you to explore the results!
If you would like to share your overemployment case (as an employee or as an employer), write to: over@new.hr.

Quotes from our respondents show the complexity and diversity of the overemployment phenomenon

"As an employer, I usually hire people for part-time side jobs paid by the hour. It pays off for simple projects with a fluctuating workload when there is no staff employee."

Quotes from our respondents show the complexity and diversity of the overemployment phenomenon

"I told them at work — either give me more money, or I'll look for a side job. They said — go ahead [take on extra work]."

Quotes from our respondents show the complexity and diversity of the overemployment phenomenon

"In Germany, side jobs are prohibited by law. Permission has to be obtained on request, and the question is whether the company will approve it or not. IT specialists will most likely not get permission for a similar side job."

Quotes from our respondents show the complexity and diversity of the overemployment phenomenon

"I know that holding a second job is legal [from the point of view of the law]. The employer cannot influence this process. Dismissal in this case is illegal."

Quotes from our respondents show the complexity and diversity of the overemployment phenomenon

"As an employer, I usually hire people for part-time side jobs paid by the hour. It pays off for simple projects with a fluctuating workload when there is no staff employee."

Quotes from our respondents show the complexity and diversity of the overemployment phenomenon

"I told them at work — either give me more money, or I'll look for a side job. They said — go ahead [take on extra work]."

Terminology: employees

by the presence or absence of secondary employment (mono-employed and poly-employed)
by their attitude to secondary employment (principled and situational)

Mono-employed — those who do NOT have side jobs: they work at one main job at the time of the survey, have not had side jobs in the last 2 years and are not preparing to take one in the near future.

Poly-employed — those who have side jobs: they work at more than one job at the time of the survey, or have recently stopped working a side job, or are already starting one.

Principled — those who consciously and on principle practice mono-employment or poly-employment, repeat offenders.

Situational — those forced to take side jobs for external and/or internal reasons in a particular situation.

Terminology: employers

By their practice of secondary employment, the poly-employed can be divided into those who practice a classic side job or classic overemployment.

Normative — those who do NOT hire for side jobs, only for a main job. Opponents of side jobs.

Variative — those who hire employees for side jobs (mixed or only for side jobs). Supporters of side jobs.

Intolerant — they penalize employees for side jobs, principled opponents of side jobs.

Tolerant — they do not penalize, are not die-hard opponents of side jobs.

Other working concepts:

Company types

Russian — founded and located in the Russian Federation (a variant is the Russian office of a foreign company).
Partly Russian — has Russian roots, the team is mostly Russian-speaking, but the company operates on a foreign market and has left Russia. The company may or may not continue to do business in Russia.
Foreign local — the company has never been connected with Russia, most of the team are local specialists who speak the local language.
Foreign international — the company has never been connected with Russia, the team is international.
Company sizes
Small — up to 50 employees
Smaller mid-size — from 50 to 200 employees
Medium — from 200 to 500 employees
Large — from 500 to 1000 employees
Very large — from 1000 to 5000 employees
Huge — more than 5000 employees
A company that is part of a corporate ecosystem
Types of people management
Authoritarian, over-controlling — constant strict control of working time and tasks performed. Tasks and ways to solve them are defined only by the manager.
Authoritarian — constant control, daily reports, tasks and ways to solve them are defined only by the manager.
Liberal — flexible management, employees decide on tasks and how to do them themselves, the manager does a final check of the quality and results of the work
Democratic — weekly reports, the manager makes decisions in dialogue with employees.
Democratic, self-control — periodic control, the manager makes decisions in dialogue with employees.
Types of employer policy on side jobs
Encouraging — additional professional projects are encouraged as developing employees' professional qualities.
Tolerant — freedom for any alternative employment as long as it does not interfere with duties at the main job.
Neutral — no ban on side jobs outside working hours. Whatever an employee does at that time is their own business.
Privilege policy (individualized) — no official policy at all, everything is decided individually.
Prohibitive — a strict ban on any alternative employment (side jobs, sole proprietorship, self-employment).

Respondent profile

Who are all these people

Total respondents – 3,169 people

The typical respondent of this survey is a man, a senior backend developer aged 34, an employee of a large Russian company. With a probability of 45% he has a side job, and in two cases out of three he is sure he is forced to do it for various internal and external reasons. He does not do it all the time, only under certain circumstances.

Employees and employers

Respondents: split into employees and employers
Number of respondents: 3,169

Employee specializations

Backend | Desktop | Embedded development
Analytics
Testing
HR | Recruiting | HR-DevRel
Frontend | Fullstack development
Product management
Project management
Technical management | Software Architecture
Infrastructure | DevOps | SRE | NetEng | InfoSec

Specializations

Distribution by gender

Employee specializations
Number of respondents: 3,031

Employee grades — The sample best represents seniors (40.5%) and other senior grades.
The share of middles is smaller than in the market structure.
Interns and juniors are represented even more weakly (6.5% of the sample), so data on them should be treated with caution.

Respondent grades
Number of respondents: 3,031

You can explore the profile of our respondents in more detail below — the charts show their age, gender, region of residence, etc. (see "Read more").

Read topics 1-4 in the previous part of the study

Topic 5. Reasons for side jobs

Why on earth and what for?

What do employers think?

main employers assess their employees' drive for money soberly, while those who hire for side jobs underestimate it
main employers tend to underestimate employees' drive for professional development; those who hire for side jobs turned out to be closer to the truth on this point
Top 3 reasons for side jobs
Money — 80%
Professional experience in their own field — 40%
Lack of control — 30%
Money — 67%
Professional experience in their own field — 62%
Professional experience in a new field — 55%
Money — 81%
Professional opportunities — 51%
Organizational opportunity — 39%

Why do IT specialists do it?

Employees: reasons for a side job
Number of respondents: 1,276
Multiple choice

Money is, as expected, in first place. However, there is a difference between a "regular" side job and overemployment. For overemployed people money comes first in 94% of cases, for the rest — in 78%. Moreover, with a classic side job, professional opportunities are much more important (55%) than with overemployment (36%).
Money motivates individual contributors the most. For managers and top executives, however, professional opportunities are no less interesting than financial ones, and sometimes more. In general, professional motivation grows with grade — from junior (43%) to top (76%).
Social obligations and diversifying the risk of being left without a job were added by our respondents themselves in open answers. This means these reasons matter to IT specialists with side jobs. These options may be far more common than the figures obtained, since they were not on the list of answers.

What does "for financial reasons" mean?
81.4% (1,038 people)

As we found out, IT specialists take side jobs not because they are starving and have nothing to feed the cat with or pay the rent with (that happens too, but it is rare). And not because they are all spoiled and greedy. They do it because they feel the need to live a full life through hobbies, goods and, what is especially notable, through big life projects (building a house or starting their own business, for example).

While the financial motivation of "regular" side-jobbers is more often tied to the innocent joys of life, overemployed people are more ambitious and earn extra money for a sense of independence and freedom, or plan to invest the funds in their own projects.

I earn for the small and big joys of life (43.5%)
I selflessly love money (23.6%)
I want to invest in big life projects (22.6%)
I top up to the income I need — for bread and butter (22.2%)
I get money that makes me freer and more independent (21.1%)
I get money that makes me freer and more independent (55.9%)
I want to invest in big life projects (48.7%)
I earn for the small and big joys of life (32.2%)
I selflessly love money (22.6%)
I top up to the income I need — for bread and butter (19.9%)

A "regular" side job most often brings IT specialists ⅒ of the income from their main job (39% of answers from respondents with old-style side jobs). Overemployed people, on the other hand, increase their income significantly and in 31% of cases receive an amount roughly equal to their main salary.

The top specializations with the most significant income from a side job of any type — more than 50% of the main job's income — are developers and specialists working with data. Side jobs bring the least to support and supporting specializations.

Our respondents' comments illustrate the many shades of financial motivation: from the most basic need for money to the desire to get everything at once. What these two extremes have in common is that such behavior is typical in conditions of significant risks, short planning horizons and instability.

Quotes from our respondents show the diversity of financial motivation (please remember that quotes are the opinion of individual respondents and may not reflect the position of most members of the profession).

"I had a main job, then I was offered a freelance contract, so I combined them for three months, there was no need for it, but financially it was very good"
Data Engineering, middle

"On a nominal salary of $4,000 you can't build a house or buy a car. And what other ways are there to earn $8,000 a month? Two jobs. And you don't need to slog for 10 years to become C-level. That's why I'm looking for a 3rd job. You can never have too much money. Time and energy allow it."
GameDev, senior

"My salary at my main job is badly delayed."
Development, middle

"I need a bit of cash in my Russian accounts."
Testing, middle

"The side job has cool perks like payroll projects — the salary and internet cost compensation come to my card."
Testing, junior

"I have a side job at a company where I used to work. I think it's easier for the company to pay me than to train newcomers. And for me it's easy and well paid — +15% to my main salary for +10% of working time."
Development, senior

"I was looking for a job and at the same time kept moving further and further with two companies. One made an offer and I accepted it. 3 weeks later the other made a fatter offer, and I also bargained well and accepted. In the 3rd month of probation I parted ways with one company by mutual agreement (didn't like the company's processes — researcher's note). Getting $15k for 3 months is nice, although exhausting."
Development, senior

"The main job isn't big enough in terms of money, tasks and authority. And the second job offers good conditions."
Marketing, top manager

"I get attractive one-off offers, hard to refuse) partly financial motivation + new knowledge and experience."
Recruiting, middle

"I want to eat!"
Top manager

"I had a main job, then I was offered a freelance contract, so I combined them for three months, there was no need for it, but financially it was very good"
Data Engineering, middle

What does "for professional reasons" mean?
50.9% (650 people)

professional development and experience (a chance to level up skills, try yourself in a new field, do interesting tasks, etc.)
everything that does not add professionalism directly but can become a symbol of recognition or be useful when looking for a job (a striking line on the CV, the employer brand, high status in the professional community, etc.).
Experience in a field of interest (34.4%)
Leveling up skills (29.8%)
Interesting tasks (25.1%)
Experience on projects of a different scale (18.1%)
A chance to implement interesting ideas without bureaucracy (12.5%)
Leveling up skills (27.2%)
Interesting tasks (21.8%)
Experience in a field of interest (21.1%)
Experience on projects of a different scale (15.3%)
A chance to improve the CV (8%)

Those who practice overemployment show practicality and individualism more noticeably than supporters of a "regular" side job. For them, leveling up skills and professional tasks matter more, and only then experience in an interesting field. Overall, overemployed people care less about the professional side of a side job.

In the comments, respondents left opinions that show a need not just for upskilling, but also for a professional community and creative self-realization.