Income of Gig Work vs. Previous Job in Pakistan

Richard Heeks, Iftikhar Ahmad, Shanza Sohail, Sidra Nizamuddin, Athar Jameel, Seemab Haider Aziz, Zoya Waheed, Sehrish Irfan, Ayesha Kiran & Shabana Malik

Does the transition to gig work improve incomes in Pakistan?

Many workers join gig work platforms in the belief that their incomes will improve, but is this borne out in practice?  To investigate, the Centre for Labour Research interviewed 94 workers based on six platforms across three sectors: ride-hailing, food delivery, and personal care.

Of these, 51 were able to tell us what their previous monthly income had been in their most-recent employment prior to joining the platform[1].  Stated income varied from the equivalent of US$60 per month up to U$1,200 per month, and averaged US$220 per month[2].

After moving into gig work, average gross income was slightly higher, at US$240 per month but, as the graph below shows, there was a much more differentiated picture behind the average, with around 40% of respondents earning less gross income (red-bordered blue columns) than they had done previously.

However, as the graph also shows, things looked worse when comparing net income (orange columns).  For the great majority of prior jobs, work-related costs were small (only work-to-home transport, which we calculated based on typical commuting journeys in Pakistan to be just under US$18 per month; i.e. less than 10% of average gross income).  But for gig work – much of which relies on journeys by vehicle and continuous internet connectivity – the costs of petrol, maintenance and data eat heavily into gross income.  In addition, for some (only a few in our Pakistan sample) there are costs of renting their vehicle.[3]

These costs represented, on average, 65% of gross income and knocked average net income for gig workers down to just US$85 per month.  When we compare before-and-after for net income, then, we found more than 70% of our sample were earning less than in their previous job, and 45% earned over US$100 per month less.

This was especially an issue for ride-hailing drivers and it does reflect the particular circumstances during our interview period of late 2021 to early 2022: a drop-off in demand for travel due to Covid, and a steep rise in petrol prices.  Indeed, so bad was the problem that just over a fifth – 21 of the 94 – were reporting negative income.  That is, they were effectively paying to go to work as their costs exceeded their gross income; something to which the platforms responded in May 2022 by dropping the commission taken from drivers to 0%.

While recognising the challenging period for gig workers covered by our fieldwork, nonetheless, this does suggest that – by and large – gig work is not delivering the income boost that workers often hope for.  They may, for example, be lured by gross income figures, not realising how much lower net income will be.  Gig work does provide a livelihood – 40% of our sample were unemployed in the immediate period prior to joining – but it is not really fulfilling its promise.  It also falls far from decent work standards: five-sixths of those we interviewed took home less than a living wage.

If you’d like to know more, please refer to the 2022 Fairwork Report on Pakistan’s gig economy.

Acknowledgement: Fairwork is financed by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) commissioned by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ).

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[1] Those who stated what their prior employment had been gave the following job descriptions: BPO operator, Teacher (2), Housekeeper, Shopkeeper, Gas company worker (2), Safety officer, Business person, Tanker driver, Ride-hailing driver with another platform (3), Traditional taxi driver (3), Farmer, Builder, Computer operator, Cook, Technician, Shop assistant, Domestic worker, Government worker

[2] This average is some way above the overall average earnings of US$140 per month but well below formal sector average monthly salary of US$480.

[3] For further detail, see this discussion of the breakdown of ride-hailing passenger payments.

Distribution of Income from Motorcycle-Based Gig Work in Indonesia

When a consumer pays for motorcycle-based gig work, where does the money go?

Following the approach of an earlier, similar post on car ride-hailing,  and again using data gathered by the Fairwork Indonesia team in Jakarta, we can break this down using the generic model shown below:

a. Amount paid by customer: the service payment plus a platform fee (sometimes called an order or service or transaction processing fee) plus – sometimes – a tip.

b. Amount paid to platform: platforms typically take a commission (a set percentage of the customer service payment, usually between 10-25%) and often also charge a platform fee.

c. Amount paid to worker: all of the tip and the service payment minus the platform’s commission.  In some instances – at the end of a shift or at the end of a week – the worker might also get a bonus payment from the platform e.g. for completing a certain number of tasks or being available for work consistently and/or at particular times.  There may also be other criteria that impact access to bonus payments such as low order cancellation rates or high customer feedback ratings.  Bonuses are paid to the worker from the platform’s share which is taken from the platform’s commission; sometimes also from the platform fee; and in some instances more than this (in other words, in these cases, the worker earns more than the amount paid by the customer due to an additional subsidy taken by the platform from investment or other sources of capital).

The two charts below show the distribution of customer payments for two motorcycle-based gig work platforms (which were charging a 20% gross commission on the customer service payment plus a fee).  Figure 1 presents data for riders who own their own motorcycle (the majority of riders in our sample).  Figure 2 presents data for riders who finance their vehicle through loan repayments or (less frequently) rental.

We can draw a number of conclusions:

i. Shares of the Pie: the worker’s true net income (i.e. after work-related costs have been taken into account) is a significant share – around two-thirds – of the total payment made by the customer.  Aside from the net income earned by the worker, the great majority of the customer payment is captured by large private businesses; typically multinationals – the platform, fuel companies, vehicle finance houses, telecom providers.  A significant chunk of vehicle servicing and maintenance costs even goes this way via parts, oil, tyres, etc.

ii. Fuel Costs: fuel makes up a very significant proportion of costs: around 80% of costs for bike owners; about half of costs for those who finance their motorcycle.  It is therefore not surprising that the price of fuel is always at the forefront of workers’ minds: a relatively small rise can cause quite a significant reduction in their net income.

iii. Financing vs. Owning: as expected, the net income of those who finance their vehicle is a lower proportion of customer payment than that of vehicle owners.  In absolute terms, these two groups take home about the same net income (non-owners’ net income was about 5% lower).  It’s not completely clear how this happens but one contributing factor is that workers who finance their bikes work longer hours in order to help towards earning the extra to cover their repayments: an average 78-hour week compared to a 66-hour week for those who owned their bikes.

iv. Bonuses and Platform Subsidies: as noted below, the figures here are calculated on the basis of 23.5% of rider income deriving from platform bonus payments.  The platform gross commission plus fee represent just over 32% of the customer payment; yet the platform’s net earning is 5% or 6% only.  In other words, and absent unknown factors, the platform is on average paying substantially more than its entire commission to workers.

On this basis, one can calculate the tipping point at which platforms earn nothing and are having to subsidise worker income from investment or other sources of capital.  As illustrated in Figure 3, for this instance, this will happen when worker bonuses make up more than 30% of their income.  Yet one can find examples in Indonesia where the effect of bonuses is to more than double workers’ basic pay (i.e. bonuses make up more than 50% of worker income).  In such circumstances platforms must be significantly subsidising gig work from capital. If this is widespread, it may help to explain why so many gig work platforms report operating losses.

Network effects – the greater value of a platform to users as more users participate – would predict the emergence of monopoly (single seller of services to customers) and monopsony (single buyer of services from workers).  Yet this has not happened in most gig economy markets – including those of Indonesia – which, instead, are oligopolies/oligopsonies, meaning there is competition between platforms for both customers and workers.  It is that competition which in part motivates the payment of bonuses to workers.

Notes:

– Although insurance is shown as 0%, there are small payments against this item by some workers; just that they are so negligible a component that they rounded down to zero percent.

– The average figures we have included are that 25% of rider income is made up from tips and bonuses, of which tips make up 1.5%.  This must be seen as a very rough-and-ready average because platforms’ bonus payment schemes are continuously changing; their availability typically varies between workers (e.g. with tiered systems such that the highest bonus payments are only accessible by workers who meet particular criteria on workload, availability, cancellation rates, customer ratings, etc.); and workers’ ability to meet the targets necessary for bonus payment varies from day to day.  Bonuses are typically also only achievable for those working very long shifts: some of our sample were working 15- and in a couple of instances 18-hour days.

– The figures here do not take into account any customer-side promotions that platforms occasionally run; the assumption being that these may not alter the share of rider income.

– Fairwork data from South Africa showed riders’ net income to be 55% of the total customer payment, but this did not separately account for bonuses, which will increase the percentage.  Overall, distribution of income will vary between platforms and locations so the figures above should be seen as illustrative rather than universal.

– Research work reported in this blogpost was supported by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), under a commission by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ).

Post by Richard Heeks, Treviliana Putri, Paska Darmawan, Amri Asmara, Nabiyla Risfa, Amelinda Kusumaningtyas & Ruth Simanjuntak.

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Distribution of Income from Ride-Hailing in Indonesia

When a customer takes a taxi journey from a ride-hailing platform, where does the money go?

Using data gathered by the Fairwork Indonesia team in Jakarta, we can now break this down using the generic model shown below:

a. Amount paid by customer: the fare for the ride plus a platform fee (sometimes called an order or service or transaction processing fee) plus – sometimes – a tip.

b. Amount paid to platform: platforms typically take a commission (a set percentage of the customer fare, usually between 10-25%) and often also charge a platform fee.

c. Amount paid to worker: all of the tip and the fare minus the platform’s commission.  In some instances – at the end of a shift or at the end of a week – the worker might also get a bonus payment from the platform e.g. for completing a certain number of rides or being available for work consistently and/or at particular times of peak demand.  There may also be other criteria that impact access to bonus payments such as low order cancellation rates or high customer feedback ratings.  Bonuses are paid to the worker from the platform’s share which is taken from the platform’s commission; sometimes also from the platform fee; and in some instances more than this (in other words, in these cases, the worker earns more than the amount paid by the customer due to an additional subsidy taken by the platform from investment or other sources of capital).

The two charts below show the distribution of customer payments for two car ride-hailing platforms (which were charging a 20% gross commission on the customer fare plus a fee).  Figure 1 presents data for drivers who own their own vehicles (the minority of car taxi drivers in our sample).  Figure 2 presents data for drivers who finance their vehicle through loan repayments or (less frequently) rental.

We can draw a number of conclusions:

i. Worker Share of the Pie: the worker’s true net income (i.e. after work-related costs have been taken into account) is a minority share – around one-third – of the total payment made by the customer.

ii. Large Business Share of the Pie: aside from the net income earned by the worker, the great majority of the customer payment is captured by large private businesses; typically multinationals – the platform, fuel companies, vehicle finance houses, telecom providers.  A significant chunk of vehicle servicing and maintenance costs even goes this way via parts, oil, tyres, etc.

iii. Fuel Costs: fuel makes up a very significant proportion of costs: around 90% of costs for vehicle owners, who spend more on fuel than they earn in net terms; about half of costs for those who finance their vehicle.  It is therefore not surprising that the price of fuel is always at the forefront of workers’ minds: a relatively small rise can cause quite a significant reduction in their net income.

iv. Financing vs. Owning: not surprisingly, the net income of those who finance their vehicle is a lower proportion of customer payment than that of vehicle owners.  In absolute terms, these two groups take home about the same net income.  It’s not completely clear how this happens but one contributing factor is that workers who finance their vehicles work longer hours in order to help towards earning the extra to cover their repayments: an average 70-hour week compared to a 65-hour week for those who owned their cars.

Notes:

– Although insurance is shown as 0%, there are small payments against this item by some workers; just that they are so negligible a component that they rounded down to zero percent.

– The average figures we have included are that 15% of driver income is made up from tips and bonuses, of which tips make up 1.5% (i.e. one tenth of the extra).  This must be seen as a very rough-and-ready average because platforms’ bonus payment schemes are continuously changing; their availability typically varies between workers (e.g. with tiered systems such that the highest bonus payments are only accessible by workers who meet particular criteria on workload, availability, cancellation rates, customer ratings, etc.); and workers’ ability to meet the targets necessary for bonus payment varies from day to day.  Bonuses are typically also only achievable for those working very long shifts: some of our sample were working 15- and in a couple of instances 18-hour days.

– The figures here do not take into account any customer-side promotions that platforms occasionally run; the assumption being that these may not alter the share of driver income.

– Fairwork data from South Africa showed a similar financial distribution, with ride-hailing taxi drivers’ net income being 32% of the total customer payment.  However, distribution of income will vary between platforms and locations so the figures above should be seen as illustrative rather than universal.

– Research work reported in this blogpost was supported by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), under a commission by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ).

Post by Richard Heeks, Treviliana Putri, Paska Darmawan, Amri Asmara, Nabiyla Risfa, Amelinda Kusumaningtyas & Ruth Simanjuntak.

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Fairwork vis-à-vis ILO Decent Work Standards

How does the Fairwork framework of five decent work standards in the gig economy – fair pay, conditions, management, contracts, representation – compare to more conventional frameworks?

As explained in a recently-published paper, Fairwork is a simplified, revised and measurable version of the 11 elements of the International Labour Organization’s decent work agenda.

Comparing the two, as shown in the table above, Fairwork is not as comprehensive.  Some ILO elements not covered were seen as unrelated to Fairwork’s purpose.  For example, the contextual elements lie outside the control of platforms, and no evidence was found of child or forced labour.  Quantum of employment measures are not directly relevant to Fairwork’s aims though it would be informative to know if platforms are creating new work as opposed to just substituting for existing work.

While outside the scope of Fairwork’s principles, work security and flexibility were investigated via open questions in worker interviews.  Workers did raise the issues of flexibility and autonomy, as positive attributes of their gig economy work.  These supposed benefits are arguably more perceptual than real.  Hours of work are often determined by client demand and shaped by incentive payments offered by the platform to work at certain times or for certain shift lengths.  Work is recorded and managed via the app and platform to a significant extent.

In sum, the Fairwork framework covers the decent work-related issues identified in the research literature on platforms, and covers the majority of decent work elements within the ILO framework.  Its ratings could nonetheless be contextualised in a number of ways by adding in broader findings about national socio-economic context, about any creation of work and autonomy by the gig economy, about dimensions of inequality within and between gig sectors, and about longer-term job (in)security and precarity.

You can find more detail about this and other foundations for the Fairwork project in the open-access paper, “Systematic Evaluation of Gig Work Against Decent Work Standards: The Development and Application of the Fairwork Framework”; published in the journal, The Information Society.

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A Better Way to Research Digital Platforms

In a new European Journal of Development Research paper – “Conceptualising Digital Platforms in Developing Countries as Socio-Technical Transitions” – I and my co-authors argue that there is a better way to research digital platforms.

Digital platforms play an ever-growing role within international development, and a body of research has emerged as a result.  This research offers valuable insights but we find three lacunae:

– Current work collectively identifies a whole set of factors at micro-, meso- and macro-levels that shape the trajectory of digital platforms.  But no research to date can encompass all of the factors and levels.

– Current work has been narrow and a-historical: it analyses the platform but not the existing ways of organising or delivering the particular social, economic or political activity that the platform competes with.

– Current work looks at either implementation and growth of platforms, or at their impact, but not both.  Yet implementation, scaling and impact of platforms are inextricably intertwined.

Our paper therefore uses a different and more holistic approach.  Understanding digital platforms as socio-technical transitions, it uses the multi-level perspective (MLP: see summary diagram below) as its analytical framework.

Using this framework, it analyses a successful ride-hailing platform – EasyTaxi in Colombia.  Although there were some challenges in applying the MLP framework, it addressed the three shortcomings of earlier work:

– It covers the broad range of factors that shape platforms at micro-, meso- and macro-level.

– By focusing on transition, it encompasses both the before and after of platform introduction.

– It analyses the platform lifecycle from initial innovation, though implementation and growth, to impact.

Thus, for example, the MLP explains how prior context and profile of traditional taxi driving created the landscape of infrastructure and incentives behind rapid scaling of the platform.  It also explains development impact: how resource endowments shifted between stakeholders; the formation and formalisation of institutional forces; and the changing distribution of power in the market.

On this basis, we recommend use of the multi-level perspective to researchers wanting to fully understand implementation and impact of digital platforms.

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How Platforms Change Markets: The Lens of “Institutional Voids”

Do digital platforms change markets for better or worse?

To help understand this, we used the lens of institutional voids in the World Development paper, “Digital Platforms and Institutional Voids in Developing Countries”.  This argues that markets don’t work properly because they have institutional shortcomings or voids: inadequate provision of information, limited matching of buyers and sellers, poor management of transactions, ineffective market regulation, etc.

A promise of digital platforms is that they will fill these voids and change markets for the good.  We investigated this using evidence from Colombia and from the South Africa Fairwork project on taxi markets before and after the advent of three e-hailing platforms: Bolt, EasyTaxi and Uber.

The “before” picture was far from perfect.  Institutional voids led to markets with problems including high costs, crime, insecurity, opportunism, informality and discrimination.  As predicted, the gig economy platforms filled some of the institutional voids that led to this profile.  This reduced costs and risks for both drivers and passengers, improved vehicle and service quality, and enabled employment for those excluded from the traditional market.

Yet, in contrast to past research on business and institutional voids in the global South, we found that void-filling is not all that platforms companies do.  They also maintain some voids, such as lack of information and lack of formal employment status for drivers.  They expand some voids, such as lack of information available to government.  And they create some voids by circumventing the regulatory roles performed by government agencies and driver collective bodies.

The core impact of these additional strategies is to increase the relative power of the platform company vis-à-vis other market stakeholders and to make the market much more unequal.  Going far beyond the typical role of business, platform companies have internalised the institutions for the entire gamut of market functions; collapsing an entire organisational field into themselves.  The previously-distributed and -dissipated institutional power that the platform companies have concentrated into themselves is thus unprecedented, particularly given the duopolistic nature of the markets that are often created.

Filling institutional voids is not wholly beneficial – our research also identified problems caused by the digitalisations and formalisations that platforms bring.  But our key recommendation is a need to identify and address the voids that these companies retain or make.  Actions needed include information provision to address customer–driver asymmetries; revitalised state control over market supply–demand imbalance; new legislation to address lack of employment rights for workers; and more effective worker collectivisation.

Our research represents a novel insight into the relation between platforms, institutions and markets, and we look forward to further work applying these ideas to other sectors and contexts.

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Protecting Gig Workers During Covid-19: What Platforms Must Do

The estimated 50 million gig workers worldwide have been particularly hard-hit by the Covid-19 pandemic.  How are their platforms responding, and what more should platforms do?

Reports indicate half of gig workers have lost their jobs. Those still working perform functions essential to society, yet they have lost two-thirds of their income on average.  Many face the impossible choice between destitution and infection, as summed up by one worker: “either I’m starving or I’m dying of coronavirus”.

To investigate this further, the Fairwork project research team undertook a survey of platform response policies; as of April 2020, covering 120 platforms in 23 countries across Europe, North America, South America, Asia and Africa.  The report from this analysis – “The Gig Economy and Covid-19: Fairwork Report on Platform Policies” – categorises platform responses according to the five ‘Fairwork Principles’ that our ongoing action research uses to rate platforms against decent work standards:

• Fair Pay: by far the most important issue for workers; yet only five platforms had direct policies to increase pay for those in work; more common were actions to maintain levels of business, like client fee waivers or expanded scope of services.
• Fair Conditions 1 (Prevention): cut-and-paste hygiene guidance and contactless delivery (though not contactless collection) were the most widespread policies. Just over half of the platforms we checked said they were providing personal protection equipment (disinfectant or, less often, masks); workers report they often did not receive this.
• Fair Conditions 2 (Illness): around half of the platforms said they were providing some payment for workers who were ill, but workers reported it could be hard to access and payments often fell well below national minimum wage equivalents.
• Fair Contracts: the only response here, by a few platforms, has been to try to create a firewall around their current actions; still asserting an arm’s-length relation to workers as “independent contractors”.
• Fair Management: a few companies are guaranteeing no loss of bonus or incentive levels despite temporary deactivation of workers, or are issuing statements against any attempt by clients to discriminate against certain worker groups.
• Fair Representation: we found no evidence yet of any platform engagement with worker associations, despite a number of such groups setting out demands and even organising strikes.

Overall, we find widespread responses by platforms to the current pandemic with occasional examples of comprehensive and enlightened policies.  But there are a number of issues in most platforms’ responses to date:

• There is a gap between rhetoric and reality: platforms have been far better at publicising responses than at actually delivering them to workers.
• There is a skew in stakeholder focus: platform responses have served shareholders, investors and customers before workers, even though it is workers who form the foundation of all value for the platform.
• There is a timidity: while governments have torn up ideologies and rulebooks, platforms have generally been only incremental in their response and have too often used the language of the get-out clause rather than that of the guarantee.

Platforms have loaded risks and responsibilities onto others: too many platforms interpret “wash your hands” less in terms of the virus and more in terms of their responsibilities to their workers; throwing that responsibility onto governments for financial support and onto individual workers for their own protection from coronavirus.

Finally, there is a gap between needs and policies: between what workers require in order to stay safe – free from poverty and free from infection – and what platforms are currently providing.  Our report therefore ends with a summary of platform policy recommendations, reproduced here:

Fairwork Principle	Recommended Platform Action
1. Fair Pay	·      Rapid access to a minimum income (equivalent to at least the local living wage) for those unable to work due to fall-off in demand, legislative restrictions, or to pre-existing health vulnerabilities·      Reduction in costs (e.g. platform commission/fees) or increase in per-gig payments for those still working but with reduced earnings ·      Additional hazard pay for those facing additional risks while working during the pandemic ·      Waiver (not deferral) of work-related costs such as loan repayments ·      Facilitated access to interest-free emergency loans ·      Plan for post-lockdown income recovery measures which may include higher per-gig payments or lower commission fees ·      Inclusion in income compensation and financial deferral schemes of all those who have worked for the platform during the past three months
2a. Fair Conditions (Prevention)	·      Regular, adequate, free provision of personal protection equipment: disinfectants, gloves and masks·      Installation of physical barriers between driver and passengers in all ride-hailing cars ·      Fully contact-free supply chains (both collection and delivery) for delivery workers ·      Daily sanitisation of vehicles and upstream locations: warehouses, hubs, etc. ·      Free Covid-19 check-ups for workers and their families
2b. Fair Conditions (Illness)	·      Accessible sick pay from platforms that applies universally to all those unable to work while ill or quarantined or while providing essential care for sick family members, and which relates to pre-pandemic average earnings·      Sick pay policies that specify precisely and openly how much workers will be paid, with simple application processes which do not impose onerous health documentation requirements that sick workers cannot meet ·      Extended sick pay for those workers hospitalised by Covid-19 infection ·      Provision of general medical insurance cover ·      Provision of life insurance cover or other death-in-service benefits
3. Fair Contracts	·      No temporary or permanent alteration of contracts during the period of the pandemic to the detriment of workers
4. Fair Management	·      Ensure all Covid-19-related communications are in a form that can be readily accessed and understood by all workers·      Set up an accessible communications channel for workers for all issues relating to Covid-19; adequately staffed for rapid resolution of issues ·      Transparent reporting of policies, actions and funds initiated by platforms during the pandemic ·      Adhere to data privacy standards in collecting and sharing data about workers ·      No loss of incentives, bonus levels or future availability of jobs for those temporarily deactivated as a result of Covid-19 ·      Public statements to customers and others that discrimination against certain worker groups during the pandemic will not be tolerated
5. Fair Representation	·      Formal receipt of, engagement with, and action on Covid-19-related demands from worker representatives

Our intention is to update our report as more platforms adopt such policies.  We would therefore welcome details of updates to existing platform policies, and addition of new platforms and countries.  These can be shared with us via: https://fair.work/contact/

Acknowledgement: the work reported here is financed by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) commissioned by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) through the Global Challenges Research Fund (ES/S00081X/1).

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Second round of Fairwork’s yearly platform ratings in South Africa launched!

The Fairwork South Africa 2020 report highlights the precarious nature of work in the South African gig economy. This research is particularly timely in light of the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, which has brought the risks faced by front-line gig workers into sharp relief.

The uncertainty that has gripped the world in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic will especially impact the most vulnerable groups in our society. That includes those in casual or insecure employment, who face two possibilities: a (likely untenable) loss in income if they choose or are required to self-isolate, or ongoing exposure to the virus through the front-line nature of their work. Today the Fairwork Project is releasing a set of scores which evaluate gig economy platforms that operate in South Africa, such as Uber, SweepSouth, and OrderIn against a set of fair work standards. In the current circumstances, our findings about the situation of gig workers in South Africa are more relevant than ever.

The gig economy has flourished in South Africa, and with it, we are seeing a radical shift in how work is organised. Digital labour platforms hold the potential to reduce our sky high unemployment and inequality. However, there is growing evidence that platform workers worldwide face unfair work conditions, and lack the benefits and protections afforded to employees. To understand the state of gig work in South Africa, Fairwork, a collaboration between the Universities of Oxford, Cape Town, the Western Cape and Manchester, assessed eleven of the country’s largest digital labour platforms against five principles of fairness – fair pay, fair conditions, fair contracts, fair management, and fair representation – and gave them each a fairness rating out of ten.

GetTOD, SweepSouth, and NoSweat are tied at the top of this year’s league table with eight out of ten points. The fairness scores aim to help South Africans understand which digital platforms are committed to providing decent work.

Fairwork’s research on shortcomings in worker protections in the gig economy is even more relevant and urgent in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Gig workers such as rideshare drivers and delivery couriers will play an essential role over the coming weeks and months – enabling access to transport services, and facilitating a continuous supply of food and other necessities to those who are self-isolating. That means that those workers are more vulnerable to exposure to COVID-19. However, if they need to self-isolate, they face severe financial insecurity.  If they are unable financially to self-isolate, they could also unfortunately spread the virus. Without unemployment benefits or sick pay, gig workers have no safety net.

Platforms and governments need to ensure that gig workers and those who are currently financially unable to stay at home are protected. Uber South Africa has indicated that it will follow the international company policy of compensating workers required to self-isolate for 14 days. However, we await details of exactly who will be covered, and to what extent.

With regard to Fairwork’s other findings, almost all platforms operating in South Africa were found to pay at least the minimum wage. However, when workers’ expenses (such as petrol and transport costs) were taken into account, evidence could only be found that six out of the eleven platforms paid workers above the minimum wage.

Growing numbers of South Africans find work in the gig economy, and digital platforms are frequently heralded as a solution to mass unemployment, as they allow those who typically face barriers to employment to find work more easily. Thirty percent of the gig workers who spoke to Fairwork were unemployed before getting jobs with their respective platforms. However, there is also evidence that some people are moving from secure work into insecure gig work, and seeing reductions in income.

The employment challenge facing South Africa is not simply the quantity of jobs but also the quality of jobs being created. Across contexts, Fairwork’s research has shown that gig workers face low pay, dangerous work conditions, opaque algorithmic management structures, and barriers to organising and bargaining collectively. However, decent work and job creation are not mutually exclusive. This is why, by bringing workers and other stakeholders to the table, Fairwork is developing an enforceable code of basic worker rights that are compatible with sustainable business models.

This is the second annual round of Fairwork Project ratings for South African platforms, and the impact is beginning to build.

Fairwork engages directly with platform managers to suggest avenues for improvement, and one of their accomplishments includes securing guarantees from two platforms – NoSweat and GetTOD – that all jobs they post will pay above the living wage, calculated at 6,800 South African Rand per month.

Furthermore, after working with the Fairwork Project, GetTOD has publicly announced its willingness to engage and negotiate with a union or workers’ association, including this in its terms and conditions. This is a commendable step to ensure fair worker representation. Having a voice and collective power in the workplace is essential for workers if they wish to move away from exploitative relationships.

Fairwork seeks to furnish consumers with enough information to be intentional about the platforms they choose to interact with, thus contributing to pressure on platforms to improve their working conditions and their scores. In addition, Fairwork engages with policy makers and governments to advocate for extending appropriate legal protections to all platform workers, irrespective of their legal classification.

Finally, and most importantly, they work with workers and workers’ organisations to develop and  continually refine their principles to remain in line with their needs. Ultimately, the project aims to support workers in collectively asserting their rights.

The current health crisis brings to light the essential role that gig workers play in our society, in service provision, infrastructure, and care. These workers are often working with little protections and low pay. COVID-19 is quickly revealing the injustice and unsustainability of the status quo.

Download the full report here.

A more accessible PDF is also available for users with screen-readers.

We would love to hear your thoughts on the report, or on our broader work – if you’d like to get in touch, head over to our Contact page, or email us.

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to keep up to date with Fairwork.

(This is a re-post of the original Fairwork blog posted by Srujana Katta.)

Trust Issues and Ride-Hailing Platforms in Lagos, Nigeria.

The idea of building trust is often central to the adoption and use of technology platforms in general such that the processes and governance of these platforms ought to align with the realities of user-groups which are essential for a seamless service. Since 2013, the entry of ride-hailing platforms in Nigeria has increased because of an overall technology awareness in Lagos and continuous successes of existing ride-hailing companies such as Uber and Taxify (see Table 1). Ease of access, trip predictability and ease of fare calculations and payment, amongst other things have improved.

Despite its growing impact on urban transport in Nigeria, the industry has suffered several challenges such as insecurity and lack of safety for user-groups. Prior to ride-hailing platforms, the notion of trust has been integral for taxi businesses or technologies to thrive. For instance, a passenger who builds a bond with a local taxi driver such that the driver runs personal errands such as dropping off school kids.

Trust in simple terms is the belief in the ability of someone or something. There has been increasing interest in the concept of trust in online transactions since the development of the internet and e-commerce in the early 1990s ⁽¹⁾. The concept of ‘trust’ encapsulates both offline environments and online environments such that the difference lies in the varying characteristics of these environments as well as the context in which trust is formed and maintained. In technology, “it is a belief that a specific technology has the attributes necessary to perform as expected in a given situation in which negative consequences are possible” ⁽²⁾.Risks and uncertainties are exacerbated because users lack total control of the processes governing ride-hailing apps.

Table 1: Ride-hailing companies in Lagos
Source: Author’s fieldwork

In the ride-hailing industry in Lagos, both drivers and passengers are aware of the risk in engaging with a complete stranger via an app which is monitored by platform companies through data analytics and algorithms. Unlike the conventional taxi industry, user-groups often build trust in platform companies based on the efficiency and reliability of their apps over time. For example, Mr Ayo, the Taxify driver has just accepted his first trip for the day, but later declines because the rider would only pay via an ‘online bank transfer’ and from experience, the driver does not trust this process because it is often a fraudulent tactic used by riders without money. Using a third-party banking app to make a transfer to the driver’s account gives the rider more power in this situation because the payment could be reversed in 24 hours if reported by the rider. If it were a card-paid trip, the driver would feel safer because the ride-hailing app acts as an intermediary between both parties such that if a conflict occurs, it can be resolved amicably.

One of the many instances where the rider loses trust is through trip manipulations by drivers.  Since Uber slashed the base fare of trips by 40% in Lagos, drivers have reacted with strategies for increasing the fare of trips through manipulative techniques ⁽³⁾. In 2017, Lockito, designed for testing geofencing-based apps, was being used in inflating fares by manipulating the distance of a trip.  For example, a trip that should be about 5.9km would be double the distance when the Lockito app is being used (see Figure 1).

Although drivers are responsible for altering the GPS function in the Uber app, riders become aware that the app is also vulnerable to fraudulent activities. Riders frequently monitor the Uber app, drivers’ behaviour and prefer cash payments to card payments to avoid being defrauded during trips. Although there are other factors involved such as low smartphone and card penetration overall ⁽⁴⁾, the psychological construct of trust remains central to the reliability and predictability of drivers, riders, and the algorithms behind ride-hailing apps.

Figure 1: Incorrect GPS reading vs correct GPS reading
Source: BrandSpurNG (2017)

Regardless of ride-hailing platforms’ success in Nigeria, trust issues surrounding usability and culture remain a stumbling block especially for indigenous start-ups like Oga-Taxi. More research would be needed to understand the implications on user behaviour and what coping strategies are needed to thrive in an increasingly ‘networked’ environment as well as how these strategies may create new realities in the global South.

References.

1. Li, F., Pieńkowski, D., van Moorsel, A. & Smith, C. (2012). A Holistic Framework for Trust in Online Transactions. International Journal of Management Reviews, 14(1), pp. 85-103
2. McKnight, D. G., Carter, M., Thatcher, J.B., & Clay, P.F. (2011). Trust in a specific technology: An investigation of its components and measures. ACM Transactions on Management Information Systems, 2(2), pp. 12 – 32.
3. Adegoke, Y. (2017). Uber drivers in Lagos are using a fake GPS app to inflate rider fares, Quartz Africa, 13 Nov
4. appsafrica (2015). Can Uber really work in Lagos, Nigeria? appsafrica, 2 Jun
5. BrandSpurNG (2017). Uber Drivers In Lagos Using Fake GPS App To Inflate Fares – Report, Nairaland Forum, 14 Nov

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Analysing the Perceptions of Digital Gig Workers: Mining Emotions from Job Reviews

In a previous post, we provided a discussion of how the analysis of user-generated content (e.g. comments/posts on social media and/or job review sites) can help in understanding perceptions of digital gig workers. The prevailing assumption is that generally, digital gig workers contend with non-standard working conditions, e.g. the lack of social security coverage, long working hours, lower salaries, and the lack of benefits. Nevertheless, it is believed that digital gig workers in the Global South in particular perceive their jobs as being better than local benchmarks (i.e. office-based work).

To test the above assumptions, we developed and employed automatic text analysis methods to answer the following research questions:

• How do digital gig workers feel about their jobs?
• Which topics pertaining to decent work standards do they frequently talk about?
• Are there any differences—in terms of sentiments and topics—across different geographic locations, or across genders?

We hereby present the results of analytics in the way of answering the questions above.

Firstly, we collected online posts published by digital gig workers from Glassdoor, a web-based platform for sharing reviews of companies and their management. Focussing on reviews of the digital gig companies Upwork, Fiverr and Freelancer, we retrieved a total of 567 reviews, 297 of which include geographic metadata (i.e. the geographic location associated with the account/profile of the user posting a review). For our text analysis, we made use of the Pro and Con fields that each review came with.

Based on the NRC Emotion Lexicon, a dictionary-based emotion detection method (implemented in the R statistical package) was applied on the reviews, classifying them according to Robert Plutchik’s eight basic emotions: Joy, Trust, Fear, Surprise, Sadness, Anticipation, Anger, and Disgust. We then grouped the reviews as either coming from the Global North or the Global South based on the geographic metadata attached to them. Shown in the figure below are the 15 most frequent emotion-bearing words found within reviews, represented according to the emotions they express. Bars in amber correspond to words prevalent in reviews from the Global North (GN) while those in blue pertain to those in reviews from the Global South (GS). 

It can be observed that there are more words within GS reviews containing emotions that are clearly positive. All of the 15 words associated with Trust were found more often in GS reviews. Furthermore, 10 and 8 words associated with Joy and Anticipation, respectively, were more frequent in GS reviews. These results support the belief that digital gig workers in the Global South (GS) do express positive feelings towards their jobs.

Meanwhile, our results show that digital gig workers from both GN and GS express negative emotions. On the one hand, GS reviews were the source of 11 and 10 words associated with Anger and Fear, respectively. On the other hand, 15 and 11 words associated with Sadness and Disgust, respectively, were contained in GN reviews. This suggests that generally speaking, digital gig workers do have to contend with less than ideal working conditions, which in turn trigger such negative emotions.

Finally, 10 words associated with Surprise came from GN, 5 from GS. It is worth noting though that this particular emotion can either be negative or positive depending on context.

These results are but “teasers” to the full results of our automated analysis. Further details including the topics/themes towards which such emotions are targeted, as well as answers to the second and third research questions stated above, will be presented by Dr Victoria Ikoro in the upcoming 3rd Annual ICT4D North Workshop to be held in the Management School of the University of Liverpool on the 6th June 2019.

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