"Between March and April 2020, Fairwork conducted a survey on the platforms' responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Following the positive feedback from that first report, in May 2020, we were awarded the University of Oxford Economic, Social, Cultural & Environmental Impacts of COVID-19 Urgent Response Fund, which has enabled us to continue the research, expanding our focus and outreach.

The COVID-19 pandemic has opened up severe fracture lines of inequality within the digital economy, placing added pressures on women, immigrants, and minority ethnic groups who comprise a core part of the gig workforce. As of September 2020, the financial, social, physical and psychological toll of the pandemic has been immense. Yet, we are entering into a period where not only government subsidies are ending (if there were any), but also the relief packages and policies offered by the platforms and other private initiatives.

In this updated report, we present the findings based on 191 platforms in 43 countries across the world. We specifically expanded our research into low- and middle-income countries, where gig workers had less government support, and local platforms faced higher uncertainty due to financial risks. As in the previous report, we contrasted the platform policies against a set of policy recommendations for each of the five ‘Fairwork Principles' that we regularly use to rate work standards in the platform economy. Data for this report was collected through a combination of desk research and reaching out to the platforms."

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