The notion of part time, contractor, fractional employment, jobber, freelance work has been around for ever.

It is where an individual offers to work or complete specific tasks for another, often without the guarantee (or need) of on going work beyond that currently being offered and without the rights that full time employee may be entitled to such as sick leave, holiday leave, tenure, workers insurance and ongoing work.

The past two years have shown that the ability to find work quickly and easily, for that work to be able to be carried out with minimal capital expenditure and for it to be available when and where required has been the saviour for many, as traditional work became problematic and increasingly hard to find.

Courts around the world have grappled in the past few years with what these workers are entitled to, what is the legal relationship to the entity providing them with the work and what remedy’s or recourse do these workers have against those providing the work.

The issue seems to lie in the unequal power between those completing the tasks / works and those providing the work/tasks and the interpretation and application of work related laws in the various jurisdictions.

On the back of several court rulings around the gig economy and its workers/contractors/employees rights and entitlements, Hong Kong Radio 3’s Phil Whelan and I chat all things good, bad and possible about the gig economy.

Listen now (12 minutes 39 seconds)