Independent Workers: Growth Trends, Categories, and Employee Relations Implications in the Emerging Gig Economy

Abstract

The major objectives of this paper are threefold. First, the paper captures and explains the recent growth trends of independent workers, working as freelancers for corporations, and offering on-demand services for various types of clients mediated by App-enabled platform companies. Second, the paper discusses different terminologies used to describe independent workers and highlights the emergence of a new category of independent on-demand workers, the employment status of whom is a subject of current empirical and academic debate. Finally, the paper discusses the emergence of an increasing number of collective actions recently taken by on-demand workers against platform companies over worsened level of wages, undesirable terms and conditions of work, and inadequate workers’ protection, and examines their implications for the discipline of employee relations.