Ten Johannesburg gig workers interviewed for a new South African study described how gaps in labour protections can leave platform workers facing unpredictable hours, sudden account deactivation and limited routes to challenge decisions. The findings, published in Frontiers in Sociology on 12 October 2026, draw attention to the relationship between employment classification and the everyday realities of app-mediated work.
The researchers interviewed workers across e-hailing, delivery, freelancing and content creation. Rather than calculating how common particular problems are nationwide, the qualitative study examined how workers experienced the rules and institutions governing their livelihoods.
Its central argument is that the absence of conventional employee protections is not simply an accidental omission. The authors contend that employment definitions, the legal organisation of platform companies and sector-specific regulation can combine to leave workers with responsibilities and risks but fewer accessible protections.
The study provides a timely South African perspective on a wider debate: how should labour law respond when companies coordinate work through apps and algorithms but describe the people performing that work as independent contractors?
How the research was conducted
The research team used a qualitative phenomenological design, an approach intended to understand participants’ lived experiences and how they interpret them. Semi-structured interviews allowed the researchers to ask common questions while following up on the circumstances of individual workers.
Ten participants were selected purposively in Johannesburg. Their work spanned ride-hailing, delivery services, freelancing and online content creation. Including several kinds of gig work allowed the researchers to explore patterns that might extend beyond one particular app or occupation.
The researchers analysed interview material through reflexive thematic analysis. This method identifies recurring themes and interprets how they connect to a broader conceptual framework, rather than using statistical tests to estimate the prevalence of experiences in a population.
The framework drew on legislative exclusion, precarious work, platform capitalism and algorithmic management. These concepts helped the authors examine how formal legal structures and automated workplace decisions can shape workers’ income, autonomy and ability to seek redress.
The sample size matters. Ten interviews can provide rich accounts of mechanisms and experiences, but they cannot support statements such as a particular percentage of all South African gig workers being denied benefits or unfairly deactivated.
What the researchers mean by legislative exclusion
The authors define legislative exclusion as a process through which state action places a category of workers outside the effective scope of labour law. Their argument is that a worker may perform economically dependent labour while still struggling to establish the employment relationship needed to claim certain protections.
Traditional labour protections often rely on a distinction between employees and independent contractors. Digital platforms complicate that distinction because workers may choose when to log on while the platform still controls access to customers, payments, ratings and continued participation.
The research identifies three connected features of exclusion. The first concerns the statutory definition of an employee and how platform arrangements are structured around that boundary.
The second involves the jurisdictional architecture of platform businesses. Where contracting entities, operating companies and digital systems span different corporate structures or jurisdictions, identifying an accountable party can become difficult for a worker seeking legal recourse.
The third concerns transport regulation that recognises e-hailing as an activity but does not necessarily resolve the employment status of drivers. The authors argue that regulating a service and protecting the people providing it are related but distinct questions.
These are the researchers’ interpretations of the legal and institutional landscape. The study is not a court judgment, and its analysis should not be mistaken for a definitive legal ruling that every platform worker is an employee.
When an app makes the decisions
One recurring concern was algorithmic management: the use of digital systems to allocate work, assess performance and govern access to earning opportunities. For workers, these systems can operate like supervisors even when there is no conventional manager issuing instructions.
A driver or courier may have discretion over when to accept work, yet still depend on platform rules for pricing, visibility, ratings and access. This combination creates a tension between nominal independence and practical economic dependence.
The interview findings highlighted account deactivation as a particularly serious risk. Losing access to a platform can abruptly interrupt income, while the route to contesting a decision may be unclear or inaccessible.
The authors describe unreviewable deactivation as one consequence of legislative exclusion. Where employment protections and accessible dispute-resolution procedures do not clearly apply, workers may find it difficult to demand an explanation or meaningful appeal.
The research does not establish how frequently unjustified deactivation occurs across platforms. Its contribution is to describe the perceived consequences of a decision-making system that workers may not be able to interrogate.
Working hours and income insecurity
The study also identified unbounded working hours and economic precarity. When income depends on demand, commissions and the availability of jobs, workers may extend their working day to achieve an acceptable level of earnings.
This can make apparent flexibility more complicated than simply choosing a schedule. A person might be free to switch off an app, but financial pressure and unpredictable demand can limit how much practical freedom that choice provides.
For delivery and e-hailing workers, the broader cost of performing jobs can also matter. Fuel, vehicle maintenance, mobile data and other operating expenses affect what remains after payments from customers and platforms.
Freelancers and content creators may face different costs and contractual arrangements, yet still depend on digital intermediaries for access to work and payment. The researchers included these occupations to examine whether institutional insecurity appeared across different forms of platform work.
The study does not provide a representative national estimate of gig-worker income or the average length of working days. Claims about the size of the sector or the share of workers experiencing a particular hardship would require larger quantitative evidence.
Benefits and access to dispute resolution
Another theme was exclusion from employment-related benefits. Conventional employment can carry access to leave, social insurance contributions and established procedures for workplace disputes, depending on the worker’s legal status and applicable rules.
Gig workers operating as independent contractors may need to arrange their own protection against illness, lost earnings or interruptions to work. That shifts costs and uncertainty toward individuals, particularly where earnings are already variable.
The researchers argue that weak access to a dispute-resolution forum compounds this problem. Workers who cannot clearly identify the responsible employer or the applicable legal route may struggle to challenge decisions even when those decisions have serious consequences.
The issue is not only whether a platform publishes terms and conditions. It is also whether workers have practical, affordable and timely ways to obtain explanations, correct errors and seek remedies.
The authors connect these experiences to a broader transfer of risk. Platforms may retain control over the digital infrastructure through which work is organised while individuals absorb substantial uncertainty about earnings and continuity.
Why the findings matter for South Africa
South Africa’s high unemployment makes gig work an important source of potential income for people who may have few alternatives. The availability of flexible platform work can therefore be valuable even when working conditions are difficult.
The challenge for policymakers is to preserve useful opportunities without assuming that a flexible schedule removes the need for minimum standards, transparency or effective dispute resolution.
The study suggests that legal reform should look beyond the narrow question of whether an app worker fits an existing employment label. It should also examine who exercises control, who bears financial risks and who is accountable when automated decisions affect livelihoods.
Potential areas for debate include transparent account-suspension procedures, accessible appeal mechanisms, clarity about contracting entities and workable forms of social protection. These are policy implications rather than interventions experimentally tested by the researchers.
Any reform would also need to account for differences between occupations. An e-hailing driver, an online freelancer and a content creator may all use digital platforms, but their working arrangements, safety risks and bargaining positions are not identical.
The study’s qualitative evidence can help identify questions that legislation should address, but it cannot by itself establish which regulatory model would deliver the best balance of earnings, worker protection and flexibility.
How this compares with earlier research
A separate 2026 study involving 20 Uber drivers in Johannesburg also identified tensions between worker protection and flexibility. Some drivers wanted stronger safeguards around safety, income and deactivation, while others feared that formal regulation could increase deductions or reduce scheduling freedom.
That earlier research supports the importance of asking workers what kinds of protections they value. It does not mean all drivers share one position, and the two studies should not be combined as though they form a representative survey.
The new ten-person study adds a more explicit account of how legislative and institutional arrangements may create or reinforce insecurity. Together, the findings indicate that employment status, algorithmic control and practical access to remedies deserve closer attention.
What the study cannot establish
The main limitation is the small purposive sample. Participants were selected for the relevance of their experiences, not randomly drawn to represent South Africa’s platform workforce. Their accounts should not be generalised as national prevalence figures.
The findings are also based on interviews and interpretive analysis. Such methods are appropriate for understanding lived experiences, but they do not independently prove that a particular law caused a measurable change in income or deactivation rates.
The research spans several kinds of gig work, which broadens the range of perspectives but may also conceal important differences between sectors. A legal problem facing an e-hailing driver may not operate in precisely the same way for an online freelancer.
The authors’ causal account is therefore best understood as a proposed structural explanation grounded in qualitative evidence. Testing its consequences would require additional legal analysis, comparative research and quantitative or longitudinal data.
What should happen next?
Future research could examine larger and more diverse samples across South African cities and rural areas. It could also compare workers on different platforms to identify which contractual and algorithmic practices are associated with greater insecurity.
Longitudinal studies could investigate what happens to earnings and employment continuity after deactivation, policy changes or new regulatory measures. Administrative records, where accessible and ethically obtained, might provide evidence beyond self-reported experience.
Policy evaluations could test whether accessible appeals, clearer contracting arrangements and social-protection mechanisms actually improve workers’ outcomes without eliminating valued flexibility.
The central finding is not that digital platforms offer no benefits. Rather, the study argues that the ability to earn through an app can coexist with significant insecurity when workers lack clear and enforceable protections.
By documenting ten workers’ experiences and tracing their concerns to institutional structures, the research offers a grounded starting point for discussions about the future of gig work in South Africa. It does not settle those debates, but it makes the consequences of legal ambiguity harder to ignore.
Source Information
Study title: Exploring the Impact of Legislative Absences on the Working Environment of Gig Workers in South Africa.
Authors: Calvin Mabaso, Zini Gwele and Xavier Knight.
Journal: Frontiers in Sociology, volume 11.
Publication date: 12 October 2026.
Research design: Qualitative phenomenological study with semi-structured interviews and reflexive thematic analysis.
Sample: Ten purposively selected gig workers in Johannesburg, spanning e-hailing, delivery, freelancing and content creation.
Principal findings: Themes included long or unbounded working hours, account deactivation without accessible review, limited employment benefits and barriers to dispute resolution.
Original DOI: 10.3389/fsoc.2026.1824697.
