The Global Gig Economy: How Transport Platform Companies Adapt to Regulatory Challenges—A Comparative Analysis of Six Countries

Abstract

Non-standard employment practises in the gig economy have recently drawn critical attention from regulators and the courts in a number of jurisdictions across the globe. Transport platform companies have responded to these challenges in several distinct ways in an emerging global battle to preserve their business model. This article provides a typology of the different strategies employed by these companies in six countries, highlighting five key strategies of regulatory activism, strategic litigation in defence of a business model, tactical subcontracting, negotiations with labour unions and threatening to withdraw services. It then shows how the structural features of the gig economy may be diverging into four distinct models in the European Union, China, the United States and the rest of the world. The study contributes to our understanding of the global nature of the struggle for fair working conditions and how platform companies operate in different institutional and regulatory contexts.