CMNS253 Assignment: Analyzing Canada's Gig Worker Narratives

This essay critically analyzes the narratives surrounding Canada's gig workers, examining whether they are best described as decentralized and isolated or connected and empowered. The author argues, based on existing research and surveys, that the reality of Canada's gig workers leans towards the former, emphasizing the exploitation inherent in the gig economy, the lack of job security, and the feelings of isolation and powerlessness experienced by many workers. The essay highlights the flexible nature of gig work but contends that this flexibility often comes at the cost of worker well-being, including mental health issues, lack of benefits, and limited opportunities for social connection. The author discusses the impact of technology and the internet on the gig economy, acknowledging the potential for connection through online platforms while maintaining that these connections often remain purely professional. The conclusion emphasizes the need to address the negative impacts of the gig economy on workers, advocating for policies that promote worker empowerment and well-being.

Running Head: Sociology
0
Communications - Digital Culture
3/24/2020

Sociology
1
Essay: Which narrative — decentralized and isolated or connected and empowered — best
reflects the reality of Canada’s gig workers?
The reality of Canada’s gig workers reflects that they are less happy and lonely so they are
isolated and decentralized from the other people. The life of Canada workers has become the gig
economy which is largely based on the exploitation of the workers. In the gig economy, the jobs
of the Canada workers are not fixed as it is the free market system where they have a temporary
position (Schwellnus, et al., 2019). The organization of Canada engages in short term plans
mostly so they contract the independent workers whose job is for the specified period.
The major jobs in Canada are based on per task basis where jobs are not just limited to the Skip
the Dishes and Uber but also in the laundries, grocery stores and in the banking too. The new
workforce is hired for a specific period in Canada as per the task basis and the new employees
and the workers just accept that job (Donovan, et al., 2016). The economy of Canada is flexible
in contrast to the optimistic portrayals where the workers are empowered to control their fates.
The workers in the gig economy of Canada feels like that they are powerless and feel lonely.
As a sociologist, the workforce of Canada is also decentralized as the employees over there are
collaborating in the functional area. The workforce over Canada doesn’t work together in the
same office as they worked in the denaturalized structure (Jabagi, et al., 2019). Canada is an
advanced technology country that has the evolution of mobile technology and the internet. The
people in Canada are the denaturalized workers as they communicate through the internet
technology and do their work in the home through the internet and contribute through the
decentralized workforce.
The survey was conducted in 2019 by the Canada Quality of Work and Economic Life Study and
it was evaluated that the workers of Canada are gig and non-gig workers. This survey was
conducted online which was done by the firm Angus Reid Global. The people are worked in the
gig economy if they have performed the activities like freelancing to rideshare driving, food
delivery and doing the online task (Stevens and Shearmur, 2020).
As per Canada and the American estimates it was evaluated that one out of every five workers is
participating in the gig economy. The workers who work in the gig economy are not
conventional but they are the one who is suffering. It was found by the researchers that people

Sociology
2
over there are lonely and they work in the isolation. The people over there felt isolated as they
have no one to talk to and unable to relate to the other people as they are mostly working from
the home. They work with their laptops so it causes illness if people work alone for a longer
period (Mas and Pallais, 2017). The workers feel depressed, lonely and shortened their life span
of working in the decentralized work structure.
The sign of loneliness was experienced by the gig workers which was creating mental health.
Workers in Canada are isolated so it was measured that they experience more depression and
anxiety. Gig workers have several negative impacts on the economy of Canada as in major cases
of gig jobs, the benefits of retirement and health do not get. But there is some gig job which is
for the long-term period but their packages were limited so workers in Canada do not feel
secured (Sukdeo, 2018).
In the gig economy, the insecurities and the vulnerability arise in the workers which disrupt the
deal of work. It has become the trend in the gig economy that employees are more flexible in
working as half time employees rather than full-time employment. The gig economy has enabled
the workers of Canada to do the work from the home and can choose the jobs as per their choices
which are relatable to higher wages (Cherry and Aloisi, 2018). The labour market regulations
have been loosed through the gig economy. The working conditions have become worse in the
gig economy for the labour market and their pay scale is also getting affected by reclassifying the
jobs to the self-employed.
In gig economy the people work from the home so it also exploits the Canada economy by hiring
a handyman for some individual task, the schedule was chosen which is fit for people and there
is no schedule fix so it creates the man lazy and creates the anxiety (Prassl, 2018). The gig
economy has the variety of the job in Canada and also provides flexibility but at the same time, it
is creating the isolation, lack of cultural solidarity and increases loneliness among the people.
The workers of the gig economy feel helpless which was evaluated in the research done by the
author. The workers of the gig economy do not have any control over them. They just work
when they feel good and there is no fixed routine for them which make them less happy (Bajwa,
et al., 2018). It was also seen through the statistical report that majorly workers in the gig
economy are the youngers who are of less age and likely to be married. The people over there are

Sociology
3
unhappy as the working hours are quite long and their education is lower. The workers do not
have higher education in the gig economy but they have to work for the long hours which make
them happy.
The best example of the gig economy workers is the Uber drivers who cannot select the
passengers as they have the option and can turn drivers into the chauffeurs. Canada has the gig
economy where the workers are often isolated and powerless as their boss is an algorithm and the
employees are the subject to the whims of fluctuating demand (Morden, 2016).
As per the author, the future of gig economy workers is uncertain as the workers are lonely and
isolated. In the golden state the California law has come which was effective from Jan 1, 2020,
where the employees are reclassified as radically restructure or the contract workers. The
company Uber at the same time offering the labour model of the pioneer demand where the gig
labour can shift their work through the finder apps. The workers of the Uber can match the
services of the workers beyond the ride-sharing industry (Leal-Arcas, 2019).
For the working people of Canada, the gig economy has become the central part which is an
important way from many consumers in attaining the goods and services. Although in Canada
the major focus of the workers has been done on empowerment which helps in improving the
management practices of the people. Several demographics are working in the occupational
category where the sense of empowerment of work varies. The workers in Canada are not that
much connected as they talk only when they have some queries (Morden, 2016). The workers in
Canada have no personal relationship with the other employees they just have maintained the
professional relationship only so the people are not connected and empowered with each other.
Technology has made the connection and empowerment of the workers easy somehow. The
workers in the gig economy attend the meetings through the video calling or through the
conference way. So this is the best part of the technology and the internet which has to make the
work quite easy to collaborate and contact the workers (Flanagan, 2017). In this way, the
employees are connected by any distance and they can empower the work through the internet.
In the gig economy like Canada, workers use this way only to stay connected but still, they have
only professional relation and they don’t have any personal relations.

Sociology
4
According to me the appropriate narrative of this argument is decentralized and isolated rather
than connected and empowered (Newport, 2017). Canada’s gig workers have the gig economy in
which our people are working from their homes and they do not have any permanent job so it
creates decentralization. The workers are also isolated as they are working alone at their homes
in their comfort zone so they have no one to talk or communicate. Even if they want to discuss
something or share their personal life to something it creates the problem of those workers as
they have no one to share so it creates isolation for them.
Canada workers are not also getting any benefits as they are working as part-time employees
instead of full-time employees. The benefits like retirements and gratuity are not getting to the
gig workers (Choroszewicz and Kay, 2019). The business hires independent people and they are
hired to work remotely via smartphones and the internet. This creates the unhappiness in the
workers which I have observed as working through the distance and through the home the
workers do not have a clear concept regarding the work so it creates the stress and anxiety
among the people.
The Canada gig workers have the flexibility of working but I have also seen that they suffer from
relatively low pay which increases the stress among them and creates the depression. The
Canada workers also suffer from many other things due to the gig workers such as modest pay,
no benefits, has to pay the higher taxes and expenses and their stress and anxiety level is also
high.
If the current contract of the Canada worker changes then it creates stress for them and also
creates the stress in the partial and the full-time employee. The gig workers in Canada are also
not classified as the employees so it creates the issue for them in paying the taxes and expenses
at the high rate in comparison to the non-gig workers (Johnston and Land-Kazlauskas, 2018).
In the gig economy, there are decentralized workers where the coordination among the different
demographic people is different. The resources are wasted at the higher level and if the company
has to take any essential and urgent decision then it cannot be taken through the decentralized
workers as certain activities cannot be possible working over the remote area. Canada is an
advanced technology country which has the evolution of mobile technology and the internet
(Graham, et al., 2017).

Sociology
5
So it has found that the best job in the gig economy for the Canada workers are freelancing,
ethical hacker, artificial intelligence developer, photographers, robotics engineer, black chain
architect, etc. In Canada, the gig economy is popular for contract workers and freelance. The
workers in Canada work at the multiple gigs which help in enhancing their income. It is ha
become the trend in Canada to work as the gig economy workers who enter the various contracts
and perform the specific task for the specific period. It was seen that gig workers in Canada are
increasing at the 70% rate and they are majorly concentrated on the women, immigrants and
lower-income people.

Sociology
6
References
Bajwa, U., Gastaldo, D., Di Ruggiero, E. and Knorr, L., 2018. The health of workers in the
global gig economy. Globalization and health, 14(1), pp.1-4.
Cherry, M.A. and Aloisi, A., 2018. A Critical Examination of a Third Employment Category for
On-Demand Work (In Comparative Perspective).
Choroszewicz, M. and Kay, F., 2019. The use of mobile technologies for work-to-family
boundary permeability: The case of Finnish and Canada male lawyers. Human Relations,
p.0018726719865762.
Donovan, S.A., Bradley, D.H. and Shimabukuru, J.O., 2016. What does the gig economy mean
for workers?.
Flanagan, F., 2017. Symposium on work in the ‘gig’economy: Introduction. The Economic and
Labour Relations Review, 28(3), pp.378-381.
Glavin, P., Young, M. and Schieman, S., 2020. Labour Market Influences on Women’s Fertility
Decisions: Longitudinal Evidence from Canada. Social Science Research, p.102417.
Graham, M., Hjorth, I. and Lehdonvirta, V., 2017. Digital labour and development: impacts of
global digital labour platforms and the gig economy on worker livelihoods. Transfer: European
Review of Labour and Research, 23(2), pp.135-162.
Jabagi, N., Croteau, A.M., Audebrand, L.K. and Marsan, J., 2019. Gig-workers’ motivation:
thinking beyond carrots and sticks. Journal of Managerial Psychology.
Jabagi, N., Croteau, A.M., Audebrand, L.K. and Marsan, J., 2019. Gig-workers’ motivation:
thinking beyond carrots and sticks. Journal of Managerial Psychology.
Johnston, H. and Land-Kazlauskas, C., 2018. Organizing on-demand: Representation, voice, and
collective bargaining in the gig economy. Conditions of work and employment series, 94.
Leal-Arcas, R., 2019. Decentralization and Empowering the Citizen. In Solutions for
Sustainability (pp. 201-247). Springer, Cham.

Sociology
7
Mas, A. and Pallais, A., 2017. Valuing alternative work arrangements. American Economic
Review, 107(12), pp.3722-59.
Morden, M., 2016. Back to Work: Modernizing Canada’s Labour Market Partnership.
Newport, F., 2017. Email outside of working hours not a burden to US workers. Workplace (May
10, 2017) available at: https://www. news. gallup. com/poll/210074/email-outside-working-
hours-notburden-workers. aspx,(last visited May 6, 2018).
Prassl, J., 2018. Humans as a service: The promise and perils of work in the gig economy.
Oxford University Press.
Schwellnus, C., Geva, A., Pak, M. and Veiel, R., 2019. Gig economy platforms: Boon or Bane?.
Stevens, L. and Shearmur, R.G., 2020. The end of location theory? Some implications of micro-
work, work trajectories and gig-work for conceptualizing the urban space economy. Geoforum.
Sukdeo, V., 2018. Regulation and Inequality at Work: Isolation and Inequality Beyond the
Regulation of Labour. Routledge.