Around the world, the rules and laws that aim to protect workers were often forged a century ago at a time when the nature of work was very different from now. The various gig economy platforms that have emerged in recent years have transformed the labor market, but the rules governing workers have not really kept pace.

In Side Hustle Safety Net, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Alexandrea Ravenelle explores how gig workers fared during the Covid pandemic, when work was so heavily disrupted, and the way the employment support mechanisms introduced by the government helped (or not) those same workers.

Updating the rules

To try and improve matters, she outlines a number of ways that the system can better support such workers:

• Make everyone eligible – Unemployment protections are usually extremely valuable, but they can often only apply to salaried workers. Gig workers are often in much more complex, and fragile, working relationships that can result in them not being protected by existing legislation. This includes both the number of different gigs people work and the often variable hours that are worked each week.
• Understand polyemployment – Traditional welfare systems usually assume that people have a single job and thus offer support when we lose that single job. In the gig economy, people often have multiple gigs at any one time, and so it’s far more likely that they will lose a portion of their income rather than the entirety of it.
• Do more to advertise availability – During the pandemic, Ravenelle found that many gig workers were unaware of the support that was available, so if the welfare system was remodeled, work needs to be done to ensure that people know what’s out there and how they can access it.

“Gig work encourages poly-employment and our antiquated unemployment system is not structured for that reality,” Ravenelle explains. “If you have multiple jobs you may be penalized when it comes to unemployment benefits by receiving less or being disqualified entirely. Even when workers do receive unemployment benefits, it’s often not enough to replace all of their lost income, or it doesn’t take into account that many workers face considerable delays between when they work and whey they get paid.”