Report on working conditions of gig economy in Ghana to be launched

Ghana has witnessed a rapid growth of the platform economy, and its associated employment opportunities for thousands of its citizens, in recent years. However, existing labour laws do not adequately protect these workers, who work mainly with ride-hailing and delivery apps.

As a result, a report on the conditions of work of the gig economy in Ghana would be launched. The Fairwork Ghana 2021 report looks at the working conditions of 10 digital labour platforms against five global principles of Fairwork. These include fair pay, fair conditions, fair contracts, fair management, and fair representation.

The Fairwork Ghana report is set to provide a baseline of the current situation of platform workers in Ghana to kick start a national conversation on how to improve their working conditions while harnessing the potential of these platforms to create decent jobs.

A press release announcing the launch of the report and, copied to ghanabusinessnews.com, says Uber, Bolt, Bolt Food, Yango, Black Ride, Swift Wheel, IFerch, Eziban, Jumia Food and Glovo were all evaluated and scored against all five principles to assess whether they provide basic labour standards like minimum wage or protection against accidents.

According to the release, the report to be launched November 30, 2021 is based on data collected from May to October 2021 from digital platform workers and managers in Accra, Kumasi, and Takoradi.

The release indicated that the Fairwork Ghana project is supported by ‘Invest for Jobs’ of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, and ‘Invest for Jobs’ is implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH among others.

Fairwork, the release says, is a global project based at the Oxford Internet Institute and the WZB Berlin Social Science Centre.