Equifax surveilled 1,000 remote workers, fired 24 found juggling two jobs
Hundreds of thousands of Americans juggled two full-time jobs in September, and nearly 4 million more mixed full-time with part-time work, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. This overemployment" trend has become so popular through the pandemic that Wired reported that some workers described holding down two jobs as the cure to burnout experienced from having just one job. For remote workers, in particular, the ability to generate extra income by doing two jobs at once became so normalized, The Washington Post reported last week, that some remote workers considered it fair" to hide a second job from their primary employers.
Some remote workers learned the hard way that not all employers consider it fair, though. This week it was reported that the credit-reporting service Equifax proved unwilling to sit idly by as its employees attempted to keep second jobs on the sly. According to Business Insider, Equifax used one of its own products, The Work Number, to help it suss out who was holding down multiple jobs simultaneously" and then fired 24 out of 25 remote workers that its investigation uncovered. Some Equifax remote workers were juggling as many as three jobs.
For its investigation, Business Insider reviewed company emails, spoke to current and fired Equifax employees, and reviewed internal Equifax documents. Insider found that Equifax used The Work Number to comb through work histories and activity records for more than 1,000 employees and contractors" and see any overlapping payment periods reported by other companies. This information, Insider reported, is usually only provided to individuals seeking their own reports, while third parties would typically receive a different version that doesn't provide such granular information. In addition to dozens of workers Equifax then fired, the company reportedly flagged 283 contractors also suspected to be dually employed, but Business Insider was unable to verify if those contractors were also fired.