Multiple Jobs Held by One Employee – Is It Lawful to Take on a Second Job?

I. Concurrent employment relationships
As a general rule, the Hungarian Labour Code does not contain any prohibitive provision expressly excluding the possibility for an employee to be employed in several employment relationships at the same time — commonly referred to as a second job. It follows from the freedom to enter into employment relationships that an employee may be restricted from establishing an additional, second employment relationship with another employer alongside an existing employer only on narrow grounds, and only for reasons or purposes defined by law.

II. Constitutional guarantees
The legislature’s underlying idea was to ensure that the constitutional guarantee of the fundamental right to work and to enter into employment relationships could be fully realised. Article XII of the Fundamental Law provides that everyone has the right to freely choose their work, occupation and entrepreneurial activity. Hungary endeavours to create the conditions enabling every person who is able and willing to work to do so. This therefore guarantees, at constitutional level, the generally applicable possibility of freely entering into employment relationships — including several such relationships in parallel.

III. Details of the permissive regulation under the Labour Code
The regulatory logic of the Labour Code indicates that, during rest periods, employees may engage in activities that do not adversely affect the work performance they provide in the course of their employment. This fundamentally permissive legislative approach also makes it possible, at sectoral statutory level, to take on a second job. It is important to emphasise, however, that this is not an absolute permission: the Labour Code contains several rules that must be observed when taking on a second job, since failure to comply with them may easily place the employee in a situation where, contrary to their intention, they have breached the rules governing their primary employment relationship.

Section 6(2) of the Labour Code is of particular significance as a safeguard: the parties to the employment relationship must cooperate with one another and may not engage in conduct that infringes the rights or legitimate interests of the other party. From this provision, and also from the requirements of good faith and fair dealing set out at the level of a general clause in section 6, follows the employee’s duty of notification. This means that the employee is obliged to notify the employer of taking on a second job. Closely connected with this is subsection (4) of the same provision, under which the parties to the employment relationship must inform each other of all facts, data, circumstances or changes thereto that are material to the establishment of the employment relationship, and to the exercise of rights and performance of obligations under the Labour Code. There can be no doubt that taking on a second employment relationship affects the primary employment relationship to such an extent that its existence is clearly material from the employer’s perspective. Failure by the employee to make such notification therefore constitutes unlawful conduct.

The employer is entitled to expect that, in accordance with section 53(1) of the Labour Code, the employee appears at the place and time specified by the employer in a condition fit for work and performs the work with the generally expected level of care, in compliance with the rules and instructions applicable to the work. The employee’s fitness for work may therefore legitimately be called into question by the employer where, for example, a colleague working a day shift arrives in the morning without adequate rest because they worked a night shift at another workplace and have not slept for more than 24 hours. In such a case, it is a fully legitimate argument on the employer’s part to refuse permission for multiple employment relationships, since the employee would not be able to perform their duties with the generally expected level of care. This harms the employer’s legitimate interests protected by section 6(2) of the Labour Code. The employer must therefore be able to assess the external effects arising from dual employment, such as impaired attention caused by lack of sleep or fatigue, excessive physical strain, and similar risks.

Another relevant consideration when prohibiting a second job on the employer’s side is the standard of conduct set out in section 8(1) of the Labour Code: during the existence of the employment relationship, the employee may not engage in conduct that jeopardises the employer’s legitimate economic interests. In practice, this most commonly concerns employment with a competitor. It is plainly a legitimate interest of the employer to prevent employees from taking second jobs with competitors, since this would clearly have an adverse effect on the employer’s economic interests.

IV. The exception: when is it excluded to establish multiple employment relationships?
Under section 208(2) of the Labour Code, an executive employee is a colleague who holds a position of outstanding importance or of a particularly confidential nature from the perspective of the employer’s operations, and whose base salary reaches seven times the mandatory minimum wage. Section 211(1) of the Labour Code provides categorically in relation to such employees that they may not establish any further legal relationship aimed at the performance of work. Pursuant to section 294(1)(f) of the Labour Code, a legal relationship aimed at the performance of work includes an employment relationship, a cooperative membership relationship involving an obligation to work, a contract for services or mandate agreement, a legal relationship for the performance of executive officer or supervisory board membership activities in a business association, and individual entrepreneurial activity.

V. Does a second job affect remuneration?
The existing employment relationship and the newly established second employment relationship must be regarded as separate employment relationships, meaning that the full set of statutory requirements applies to each of them. As regards remuneration, this means that the employee’s base salary may not be set below the minimum wage or guaranteed wage minimum laid down in the relevant government decree merely because the combined remuneration from the two employment relationships exceeds that threshold. In other words, the statutory provisions on the minimum wage and guaranteed wage minimum apply equally to both employment relationships. By way of outlook, it should be noted that the amount of the minimum wage and the guaranteed wage minimum changes from year to year, and the Government adopts a new decree on this annually.

Overall, it can be concluded that the fundamentally permissive regulatory framework is subject to statutory conditions, the application of which requires careful consideration. If you encounter the legal issues surrounding second jobs, whether from the employer’s or the employee’s side, we recommend involving an expert. Should any questions arise in this regard, we are of course available through any of our contact details.