Working time in the platform economy

18 August 2026

The question of whether all the time you spend on work actually counts as working time is a long-standing debate. The discussions cover topics such as travel time, the time needed to log in for the next shift, or time spent on training courses to carry out specific tasks.

The rise of the platform economy – where delivery riders wait for their next assignment – has reignited the debate over what constitutes working time for many. Why is waiting time such a major issue in the platform economy? What are the current debates? And where do the solutions lie? These are the topics we explore in this article.

Working time in the platform economy: a complicated discussion

Digital labour platforms such as Uber, Upwork and Gojek are playing an increasingly significant role in matching the demand for and supply of (short-term) work in a fragmented labour market. In 2023, the World Bank estimated the number of platform workers worldwide at between 154 and 435 million, or 4.4% to 12.5% of the global labour force.

Platforms act as intermediaries between supply and demand in markets that are fragmented on both the supply and demand sides. Examples include delivery and taxi services, as well as online work such as content moderation and data labelling. As these are short-term gigs, there is a high risk of “waiting time” between gigs. As workers have no influence over the number of workers and clients active on the platform, nor over how gigs are allocated, their ability to influence the time between different gigs is limited. In response, workers may log in to several apps simultaneously to increase their chances of finding work. This is known as ‘multi-apping’ or ‘multi-homing’.

Furthermore, platform workers are classified by the companies operating the platforms they use to access work not as employees, but as self-employed workers. This puts workers in a vulnerable position, as the risks that would normally be borne by the employer in an employment relationship are now shifted onto the individual worker. For example, the platform worker is personally responsible for the materials required to carry out the work and for the time that cannot be directly attributed to a specific assignment.

Working time in the platform economy unravelled

The debate on working time in the platform economy is most prominent on platforms for ‘on-demand’ work, such as taxi and delivery services, and in online crowdwork. One could say that the shorter the average duration of a gig and the lower the worker’s autonomy, the more important the debate on working time becomes.

Let me take the example of a food delivery worker: the category of workers who have literally given the platform economy a face. The time a food delivery worker spends on work begins with the journey from home to the location where the worker opens the app and thereby indicates that they are ‘available for work’ – this is known as ‘on-call time’. The moment a delivery rider accepts an order, ‘engaged time’ begins. This is all the time spent carrying out the gig: the journey to the restaurant, waiting at the restaurant until the food is ready, the journey to the customer, and sometimes waiting for the customer to open the door to accept the delivery. Engaged time is compensated by platform companies, but the gap between ‘on-call time’ and ‘engaged time’ is borne by the individual worker. A problem arises because the worker has little to no influence over access to work, whilst the platform benefits greatly from an oversupply of workers, ensuring that every gig that comes in can be taken on quickly by one of them.

A problem that only grows when you look beyond just ‘on-call time’ and ‘engaged time’. This is because these do not include the time the worker needs to travel to and from the starting location, time spent on administration, attending training courses, or time for holidays and sick leave.

The discussions on working time in the platform economy

The two main stakeholders in this discussion are the worker’s perspective and that of the platform companies. They each have their own narrative and interests, and policymakers must seek a workable middle ground.

The platform worker’s perspective is clear: they experience a great deal of unpaid waiting time that is not recognised by the platform companies as (paid) working time. In addition, it is common for delivery drivers to have to wait a long time at a restaurant before they can collect the order, and they may encounter heavy traffic. This is something the worker cannot predict when accepting a gig, which is usually offered as a fixed fee.

The platform companies’ narrative is consistent. Their position is that only ‘engaged time’ counts as working time. After all, workers can decide for themselves when they are available for work and have the option of being available on multiple platforms simultaneously. Their counter-argument is often summarised as: ‘If a delivery driver has no deliveries for 20 minutes but is available on three different platforms, who should pay for that time?’.

Experts are critical of the platform companies’ defence. For instance, workers find that when they frequently turn down an offer because they are carrying out an assignment for another platform, this affects the number of offers they subsequently receive. Furthermore, many platforms operate bonus schemes, making it less attractive for platform workers to be available on several platforms at the same time. Lena Simet, senior economic justice advisor at Human Rights Watch, recently said in an episode of The Gig Work Podcast about ‘multi-apping’: “In reality, this ‘multi-apping’ is hugely overestimated; about 80 to 90 per cent of platform workers use only one app at a time. What’s more, these companies have access to all the data: they can calculate down to the second who is available when.”

Practical solutions

App delivery riders in New York have secured a minimum rate through collective action. Through their own research, they highlighted issues such as low wages, unsafe working conditions and privacy breaches. The city council confirmed these findings and used them to inform new policy. Instead of requiring companies to employ workers directly, New York introduced a minimum rate for platform workers, despite opposition from platform companies. The definition of working time was a key part of the discussion. Ultimately, a pragmatic solution was adopted whereby waiting time is not remunerated, but the rate of pay for ‘trip time’ was increased, meaning that the time spent working helps to cover the costs of waiting time. Although the debate here too regarding working hours and the data required to calculate working hours and earnings is not yet over, this intervention has had a significant impact on the earnings of app delivery workers. For example, the amount that platforms paid out to delivery workers rose by 165 per cent (an increase of $847.6 million annually), and the average hourly rate rose from $5.39 before the intervention to at least $19.96 per (worked) hour.

The case of the Transport Workers Union (TWU) in Australia illustrates that agreeing on a minimum rate is no simple matter. In the negotiations for the Minimum Standards Order, it was agreed that the minimum pay rate does not apply to ‘engaged time’: the period from acceptance of an assignment to its completion. Although ambitions are higher here too, Jack Boutros of the TWU in The Gig Work Podcast states that he sees this as a first step towards improving conditions, describing it as “a first step and certainly not an end point”.

Possible solutions

There is still a long way to go before all the ‘online time’ available to a worker can actually be turned into paid working time (and thus recognised as working time). Many policy discussions advocate for the platform companies to employ the delivery workers directly. Once the platform company is regarded as the employer and the worker is paid by the hour, the responsibility for organising working time as efficiently as possible shifts from the individual worker to the employer. A shift towards this model is evident in Europe. Some platforms opt for the employer model themselves (Thuisbezorgd in the Netherlands), whilst others shift to this model following the loss of court cases (Uber Eats in the Netherlands) or changes to legislation (Glovo in Spain). And since the introduction of the minimum rate in New York, the number of deliveries per hour has risen from 1.6 to 2.5. By placing the responsibility with the platform, the app has a direct incentive to use the worker’s time more efficiently. An additional drawback is that when the platform is responsible for organising working hours as efficiently as possible, it also becomes more selective about which workers it grants access to the platform.

Although employing workers is a good solution, it is also important to realise that in many cases this is not a viable option. For example, the Menulog platform in Australia wanted to employ its delivery drivers and thereby take responsibility for their working hours. The other platforms and the trade union did not follow suit and kept to a self-employed model, which led to unfair competition. Furthermore, many platforms operate in markets that are typically informal, particularly in the Majority World. As a result, a shift towards employment contracts for an entire sector at a global level is not a realistic scenario.

To conclude

The platform economy has sharpened the debate on working time once again. On the one hand, the challenge lies in shifting the risk of unpaid (working) time onto the individual worker. On the other hand, we also show that the centralising and (via technology) controlling role of platforms has drastically limited the individual worker’s influence over access to and conditions of work. Workers, representatives, politicians and policymakers all have a responsibility to improve the position of workers and their control over their working hours. The case studies we have discussed in this blog show that this is possible.