Issue Of The Week: Managing The Gig Economy

Companies such as Deliveroo and Uber have transformed employment for better and worse – creating a challenge for policymakers

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“In an age of robots, ride-hailing apps and artificial intelligence, it is quaintly paradoxical that the new face of humanity at work belongs to a sweaty twenty something weaving through traffic on a bicycle with a plastic box of takeaway food on his back,” said The Times. Yet technology is transforming work in “unexpected and unsettling ways”, and existing mechanisms are struggling to keep up. Hence the new review of employment practices by Matthew Taylor, a former adviser to Tony Blair. The challenge that the “gig economy” poses to policymakers is twofold. The first is to ensure that it “empowers those who work in it”. The second is to enable it to thrive without depriving the nation of tax revenues. “The Taylor Review makes practical suggestions on both fronts. The worry is that the Government is too divided and preoccupied to put a