First EU rules on platform work

On 11 March 2024 EU employment and social affairs ministers confirmed the provisional agreement reached on 8 February 2024 between the Council’s presidency and the European Parliament’s negotiators on the platform work directive (“Directive”).

What is platform work?

The digital platform economy is growing quickly.​ During the COVID-19 pandemic, platform work gathered pace and started to go mainstream, partly thanks to an increase in food and grocery deliveries. It is becoming an engine for innovation and employment growth.

Over 28 million people in the EU work through one (or more) of these digital labour platforms.​ In 2025,​ that number is expected to reach 43 million people.​

Platform work:

• is a form of employment in which organisations or individuals use an online platform to access other organisations or individuals to solve specific problems,​ or to provide specific services in exchange for payment;
• comes in many shapes and sizes, sometimes it's also called the 'gig economy'. While the growth of digital platforms has benefitted both businesses and consumers, it has led to the development of a grey zone for many workers when it comes to their employment status.​

The Directive:

1. aims to improve working conditions and regulate the use of algorithms by digital labour platforms;
2. will make the use of algorithms in human resources management more transparent, ensuring that automated systems are monitored by qualified staff and that workers have the right to contest automated decisions;
3. will also help correctly determine the employment status of persons working for platforms, enabling them to benefit from any labour rights they are entitled to.

Platform workers: employed or self-employed?

Currently, the majority of the EU's platform workers, including taxi drivers, domestic workers and food delivery drivers, are formally self-employed. Nevertheless, a number of them have to abide by many of the same rules and restrictions as an employed worker.  

Member states have different approaches to platform work.​ National responses to platform work are diverse and are developing unevenly across Europe, national legislation has mostly been adopted in specific sectors,​ e.​g.​ in the ride-​hailing services and/or in the food delivery services sectors.​

Compromise

The Directive makes a balance between respecting national labour systems and ensuring minimum standards of protection for the more than 28 million persons working in digital labour platforms across the EU (“Compromise”). 

The main Compromise elements revolve around a legal presumption which will help determine the correct employment status of persons working in digital platforms:

• member states will establish a legal presumption of employment in their legal systems, to be triggered when facts indicating control and direction are found;
• those facts will be determined according to national law and collective agreements, while taking into account EU case-law;
• persons working in digital platforms, their representatives or national authorities may invoke this legal presumption and claim they are misclassified;
• it is up to the digital platform to prove that there is no employment relationship.

Regulating algorithmic management

The Directive:

1. ensures that workers are duly informed about the use of automated monitoring and decision-making systems regarding their recruitment, their working conditions and their earnings, among other things;
2. bans the use of automated monitoring or decision-making systems for the processing of certain types of personal data of persons performing platform work, such as biometric data or their emotional or psychological state;
3. guarantees human oversight and evaluation as regards automated decisions, including the right to have those decisions explained and reviewed.

The Directive lays down minimum rights that apply to every person performing platform work in the EU. In particular the Directive provides that:

- EU States shall:

1. take appropriate measures to ensure that, when a digital labour platform makes use of intermediaries, persons performing platform work who have a contractual relationship with an intermediary enjoy the same level of protection afforded under the Directive as those who have a direct contractual relationship with a digital labour platform;
2. require digital labour platforms to inform persons performing platform work, platform workers' representatives and, upon request, competent national authorities, of the use of automated monitoring or decision-making systems;
3. ensure that digital labour platforms oversee and, with the involvement of workers’ representatives, regularly, and in any event every two years, carry out an evaluation of, the impact of individual decisions taken or supported by automated monitoring and decision-making systems used by the digital labour platform, on persons performing platform work, including, where applicable, on their working conditions and equal treatment at work;
4. ensure that persons performing platform work have the right to obtain an explanation from the digital labour platform for any decision taken or supported by an automated decision-making system without undue delay. The explanation, in oral or written form, shall be presented in a transparent and intelligible manner, using clear and plain language;
5. shall ensure that digital labour platform directly inform the platform workers concerned on decisions likely to lead to the introduction of or substantial changes in the use of automated monitoring or decision-making systems;

- the contractual relationship between a digital labour platform and a person performing platform work through that platform shall be legally presumed to be an employment relationship when facts indicating control and direction, according to national law, collective agreements or practice in force in the EU States and with consideration to the case-law of the Court of Justice, are found. Where the digital labour platform seeks to rebut the legal presumption, it shall be for the digital labour platform to prove that the contractual relationship in question is not an employment relationship as defined by the law, collective agreements or practice in force in the EU States, with consideration to the case-law of the Court of Justice.

This presumption shall not apply to proceedings which concern tax, criminal and social security matters. However, EU States may apply the legal presumption in those proceedings as a matter of national law.

Next steps

The text of the agreement will now be finalised in all the official languages and formally adopted by both institutions.

After the formal adoption, EU states will have 2 years to incorporate the provisions of the directive into their national legislation.