Overemployed

adj, verb

adj, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    simple past and past participle of overemploy form-of, participle, past
Adjective
  1. 1
    Employed for more hours than full-time work.

    "People who remain overemployed tolerate longer hours because they either expect their overemployment to be brief (such as temporary care-giving), or figure that part-time or reduced hours status involves too large a sacrifice in terms of benefit coverage or job status."

  2. 2
    Working multiple jobs at the same time, often without the knowledge of one's employers. Internet

    "[Sarah] Murphy is one of the "overemployed"—employees secretly working more than one full-time job, aided by the rise of remote work ushered in by the Covid-19 pandemic."

Example

More examples

"People who remain overemployed tolerate longer hours because they either expect their overemployment to be brief (such as temporary care-giving), or figure that part-time or reduced hours status involves too large a sacrifice in terms of benefit coverage or job status."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From overemploy + -ed.

Etymology 2

From over- + employed.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.