Davos 2023: 'Moonlighting debate blown out of proportion,' says Wipro's Rishad Premji

Rishad Premji, the executive chairman of Wipro, who ignited a debate about moonlighting in the IT industry, said the matter was blown out of proportion and that he is "very much in support" of gig economy and people having multiple jobs as long as there is transparency with the organisation they are contracted to. 

“It has been blown completely out of proportion. If you simply look at the term moonlighting, it means having a second job secretively. And the argument was that when you have a contract with an organisation and violating that contract by having a second job secretively is not right. It is as simple as that. You can be pursuing passions and hobbies that don’t compete with the organisation and that don’t violate the agreement both in spirit and in letter with the organisation,” he said in conversation with Rahul Kanwal, Executive Director, Business Today; News Director, India Today & Aaj Tak, at World Economic Forun (WEF) in Davos. 

He said the word ‘moonlighting’ is misunderstood and people use it interchangeably with flexibility and gig economy, which is not the same thing. 

Talking about the job market, he said the euphoria of the last few years has mellowed and slowing attrition rate is indicative of this correction. He said Wipro’s attrition rates have declined consistently over the last four quarters. 

“By design when you have attrition coming down, you don’t have the same euphoria of hiring to replace people. We have hired and on-boarded more freshers in the first nine months of this year than we have on-boarded all of last year. We will honour the offers we have made and we will bring them on-board as is relevant over the course of the next few quarters,” he added. 

The debate around moonlighting gained momentum when Premji in a tweet in August last year termed moonlighting as "cheating". After him, many top executives echoed his views and said if an employee signs a contract, he or she should not violate it and that the person should work for the company only. Many IT companies like Infosys and IBM have since taken a strong position against dual jobs.