For some gig workers, losing the flexibility to set their own schedules is equivalent to taking a 17 percent pay cut, according to new research that explores the wages and work habits of DoorDash drivers.
App-based platforms that allow workers to start and stop work at a moment’s notice and change their schedules from week to week provide significant value to America’s estimated 1.6 million gig workers, many of whom don’t work enough hours to qualify for the benefits and protections typically associated with full-time employment.
“Flexibility is extremely important to gig workers. Forcing the average driver out of their preferred shift is as bad as cutting their weekly earnings by more than 5 percent. For the California drivers that we study, the ability to start or stop working at any moment and the flexibility to change hours from week to week are particularly valuable,” says Harvard Business School Professor Felix Oberholzer-Gee, who outlined the research findings in a recent working paper, Being the Boss: Gig Workers’ Value of Flexible Work, co-authored with HBS doctoral candidate Laura Katsnelson.
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