EU to Treat Gig Workers as Employees

Reforms could affect 43 million workers by 2025.

European labor ministers have agreed to bring millions of gig-economy workers into regulation.

Reforms, which still need to be approved by the European Parliament, would put the onus on platforms like Deliveroo and Uber to prove their workers are not employees.

Employees are eligible for minimum wage and sick pay, protected against summary dismissal and they qualify for pension and unemployment benefits.

What is the problem?

Ministers, who met in Luxembourg on Monday, argue some 28 million “platform workers” in the EU, who clean homes, deliver food and drive taxis, are “misclassified” as self-employed.

The European Commission doesn’t go that far. When it drafted rules to improve working conditions for freelancers in 2021, it estimated that 5.5 out of 28 million were not genuinely self-employed. Yet the new rules would apply to all platform workers.

In two years, when the reforms take effect, the European Commission believes there will be 43 million.

How the new would work

Workers would be considered employees if their platform meets three of seven criteria: