Gig workers and their social protection needs in Georgia

Abstract

Gig work has become a global phenomenon over the last decade. Gig workers are usually defined as workers who perform short-term, task based work for several organizatins at a time as opposed to traditional long-term employer-employee relationship. This type of work arrangements have been rigorously studied in the context of advanced economies, where it is equated with sub-standard, precarious employment. Being outside of traditional employment relationship it provides workers with no social and employment guarantees. The study of gig workers’ labour conditions and most importantly their social protection needs are rather scarce in low to middle income economies however. The context in the latter case is qualitative different as these countries oftentimes lack well-developed social protection systems. Therefore, while discussion in advanced economies focuses on inclusion of gig workers in existing schemes, in less advanced economies these schemes may not exist at all. Given this background it is of critical importance to investigate the interplay of gig economy and social protection in low to middle income countries.