POLICY ISSUE
The gig economy is the “segment of the service economy based on flexible, temporary, or freelance jobs, often involving connecting clients and customers through an online platform” (Investopedia.com, n.d.). It is a “business model where workers rely on a digital platform to be put in contact with clients to provide their freelance services” NortonRoseFulbright.com, 2020). According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), one important component of the gig economy are digital labor platforms which includes both webbased platforms, where work is outsourced through an open call to a geographically dispersed crowd ("crowdwork"), and location-based applications apps) which allocate work to individuals in a specific geographical area, typically to perform local, service-oriented tasks such as driving, running errands, or cleaning houses. The ILO’s 2021 World Employment and Social Outlook Report identifies the Philippines among the top suppliers of online labor (pp. 52-54) with US$16 million inflow of trade (volume of work) (pp. 43-45). This year, the Philippines was ranked as the 7th fastest-growing remote hubs in the world, based on the Nomad list, a platform where 10,000+ members log where they are working. Various estimates place the number of workers in the gig economy in the Philippines at 1.5 million (Schnabel, 2018; Payoneer, 2021; Hermoso, 2021; Abadilla, 2022).