Deciphering the Nature and Dynamics of Gig-Platform Jobs: Workers’ Hidden Precarity

Abstract

The technology-driven gig-platform sector has emerged as a new source of employment generation both globally as well domestically. This recent transformation in the labour market is reshaping the nature of labour practices, labour relations, workers’ rights, and contracts. The sector has huge potential to generate millions of job opportunities by leveraging the use of digital technology. As this sector continues to generate more jobs, such jobs are portrayed as fostering economic growth, while creating ‘meaningful jobs,’ which are mutually beneficial to workers and employers in terms of providing ‘flexibility and freedom,’ ‘better earning opportunity,’ and ‘promoting social inclusion,’ by which it implies that women are increasingly equipped to find better jobs. This article critically examines the developmental roles of platform jobs which are being particularly highlighted within the policy circle, in academic literature, and tech companies through workers’ lens. It delves deeper into the discussion on those very aspects of platform jobs just listed, including the flexibility and freedom debate, workers’ income, and the gender aspect of jobs. In doing so, it carefully examines these aspects with respect to their implications on workers in terms of working conditions and regulatory aspects. The article brings out the workers’ precarity hidden within those developmental aspects of gig-platform jobs.