‘You’re an Employee Now’: The Gig Economy Shake-Up That Could Redefine Work in SA

The delivery driver bringing you dinner. The ride-hailing operator weaving through traffic. The courier dropping off your late-night online splurge.

Under proposed changes to South Africa’s labour laws, they may soon be treated as employeesnot “independent contractors.”

Cabinet recently approved the publication of the Labour Laws Amendment Bill, 2025 and the Labour Relations Amendment Bill, 2025 for public comment. The proposals are not yet law, with public comment open until the end of March, but they signal the biggest shake-up of labour relations in decades.

The Shift

At the centre of the reform is a strengthened presumption of employment. If implemented, the law would extend labour protection to anyone whose employment is controlled by a platform or company.

People who are integrated into a business or depend on a company for an income also become employeesregardless of what your contract says.

While not a legal definition of a “gig worker,” the draft amendments redraw the line around who counts as an employee.

That could pull app-based drivers, food delivery riders, freelance platform workers, hospitality shift staff, and even certain film and television freelancers into the full protection of labour law.

What Employees Get

If classified as employees, gig workers would be entitled to:

• Join trade unions

• Bargain collectively

• Take part in protected strike action

Companies would have to issue written contracts to shift and “on-call” workers, setting out guaranteed hours, maximum hours, and notice periods. Cancel a shift without proper warning, and the worker must be paid.

For workers long treated as flexible, disposable labour, it is a fundamental shift.

What Employers Get

The reforms are not one-sided.

• Severance pay in retrenchments would doublefrom one week to two weeks’ remuneration for every completed year of service.

• It would become easier to dismiss staff. Employees could be dismissed without a hearing in the first three months of employment, or during probation, whichever comes first.

• Disciplinary procedures are streamlined, aligning with the revised Code of Good Practice on Dismissal issued in 2025.

• High earners will see their compensation for unfair dismissal capped at R1.8 million.

• New small businesses would be exempt from bargaining council agreements for their first two yearsa move designed to ease regulatory pressure on start-ups.

The Balance

Cabinet said the Bills aim to modernise labour law, strengthen enforcement, and extend protections to vulnerable and previously excluded workers, while balancing employers’ operational requirements.

“Proposed amendments aim to strike an appropriate balance between increased flexibility for employers and enhanced protections for workers,” the Cabinet statement said.

The Bottom Line

For millions of South Africans working in the gig economy, these changes could mean the difference between precarious labour and protected employment.

For platforms built on the independent contractor model, it could mean a fundamental restructuring of their business.

The public has until the end of March to comment. After that, the debate moves to Parliament. And if the Bills pass, the world of work in South Africa will never be the same.

{Source: IOL}

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