There are legal ramifications to calling your staff “employees”. Categorising workers as independent contractors or “riders” has enabled some gig economy companies to avoid paying employee payroll taxes, while leaving workers without vital benefits and protections. So what about the rights of these workers? Advocacy groups claim the food delivery sector here, which employs mainly students and migrants, is poorly regulated. The potentially hazardous working conditions of gig economy workers was highlighted this week by the tragic death of Deliveroo cyclist Thiago Cortes.Ĭortes (28), originally from Brazil, was killed in a hit-and-run incident while out working in Dublin on Monday night.
Getting enough work to provide a stable income from gigs alone isn’t always easy either, and many workers have low incomes as a result.
They often end up working similar hours to permanent employees but with zero job security and zero benefits. These workers typically find themselves on rolling, fixed-term contracts with little or no control of their work arrangements. But that’s a world away from someone on a zero-hours contract, employed to clean a hospital or deliver takeaways. Many are well-paid professionals for whom it makes more sense to work flexibly. Some gig economy workers are what you might call micro-entrepreneurs running their own businesses. That’s a difficult question as it covers a multitude of work arrangements, some good and rewarding, others precarious and badly paid. “For instance, individuals in service and sales occupations, where we expect many gig workers to be located, make up only 25 per cent of all temporary (non-student) employment,” he says. Gig workers are likely to make up a relatively small share of temporary workers. However, Seamus McGuinness of the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) says while most gig jobs tend to be temporary, not all temporary jobs are gig jobs.
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