For a courier delivering meals through an app, the manager is often software. An algorithm offers the next job, suggests a route, sets the fee and tracks how quickly each delivery is completed. It may also lower a worker's rating or suspend an account without anyone reviewing the decision.
Much public debate about the gig economy has focused on a different question: whether couriers are employees or independent contractors. In the United States, that question still dominates, and the Department of Labor has revised or proposed revising its test three times since 2021. The European Union's Platform Work Directive, adopted in 2024, addresses classification too, but also treats algorithmic management as a separate problem.
Under the directive, platforms must tell workers which automated systems monitor them and make decisions about them. They must employ trained staff with the authority to override those systems when a decision significantly affects a worker, such as a suspension. They may not use automated tools to process data about a worker's emotional state, private conversations or activity outside working time. Several of these protections apply whether or not a worker is classified as an employee. Spain had moved this way in 2021, requiring companies to tell workers' representatives how algorithms shape working conditions. Member states were given until December 2026 to adopt the directive's rules.
What is the passage mainly about?