Misclassifying workers as contractors cuts platform labour costs by 30 percent

Evidence

The most notorious part of these firms is their outsourcing of workers. In America, these platforms legally understand their workers as ‘independent contractors’ rather than ‘employees’. This enables the companies to save around 30 per cent on labour costs by cutting out benefits, overtime, sick days, and other costs. It also means outsourcing training costs, since training is only permitted for employees; and this process has led to alternatives forms of control via reputation systems, which often transmit the gendered and racist biases of society. — Nick Srnicek, Platform Capitalism, 69

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The contractor framing of gig work mainly benefits employers, not workers — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 217

Related

• The contractor framing of gig work mainly benefits employers, not workers (similarity 0.82)
• Gig work shifts labor from white wealthy clients to poorer black and Latino workers (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• The contractor framing of gig work mainly benefits employers, not workers #corroborates (0.92) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 217