The 'feast or famine' lifestyle of giggers in gig economy

This editorial examines the gig economy as an evolving socio-technical labour system shaped by digital platforms, shifting employment relations, and post-pandemic restructuring of work. It conceptualises gig work as a continuum of digitally mediated, short-term, and task-based economic activity encompassing both low-skilled service provision and high-skilled knowledge work. While platform economies have expanded opportunities for micro-entrepreneurship, income diversification, and flexible labour participation, they have also intensified debates around precarity, information asymmetries, and algorithmic control.

The analysis highlights how platform-mediated labour systems reconfigure traditional employment relationships by transferring risk to workers while embedding reputational mechanisms such as ratings and reviews as central determinants of income and job access. Drawing on pandemic-era disruptions, the editorial further argues that COVID-19 has simultaneously accelerated demand for gig services and exposed structural vulnerabilities in gig workers’ access to income stability, healthcare, and labour protections.

The paper contributes to gig economy scholarship by framing platform labour as a contested governance space where efficiency, flexibility, and entrepreneurial opportunity coexist with asymmetrical power relations and institutional gaps. It calls for more integrated policy responses involving platforms, governments, and worker collectives to ensure more resilient and equitable gig economy ecosystems.