Gig economy's unseen cost

Globally, over 1.1 billion people now work in the gig economy, but most of them have no sick leave, no retirement plan and no safety net when things go wrong. The flexibility promised by platforms like Uber, Pathao, and Shohoz comes at a price workers quietly bear alone.

Labour laws in most countries, including Bangladesh, were built around a simple binary, you are either a full-time employee with benefits, or an independent contractor with none. Gig workers almost always fall into the second category. This arrangement is enormously convenient for corporations, it offloads the cost of healthcare, paid leave, and retirement benefits entirely onto workers.

This is not a personal problem. It is a structural one. Consider the situation in Dhaka, where tens of thousands of ride-sharing and delivery workers depend on daily gig income with no formal protections. When a Pathao courier breaks his leg or a Shohoz rider falls ill, there is no employer to call. The medical bills, the lost income, the missed rent all of it lands on the worker and, eventually, on public resources.

The solution is not to eliminate flexibility but to delink benefits from employers entirely. Portable benefit models where health insurance and retirement contributions follow the worker, not the job offers a practical path forward.

Several countries are already piloting versions of this. Bangladesh's policymakers should take note.

Flexibility and security are not opposites. It is time our labour laws caught up with the economy they are supposed to protect.

Arrafi Ar Rashid

Dhaka

arrafi.rashid@northsouth.edu