Should ‘Gig’ Workers be Covered by the EI Regime? The Challenges and Pitfalls

Gig workers have become a fixture of the modern workforce and a focus of policy ideas to reduce their often marginalized status. This E-Brief examines one aspect of that status: the lack of unemployment insurance that magnifies the precarious nature of their work lives; an issue being examined by the federal Employment and Social Development Canada department. The author examines two possibilities for providing EI coverage to gig workers or other unincorporated self-employed workers without employees. The first consists of integrating them into the standard, regular-benefit EI regime along the lines of the Special Benefits for Self-employed Workers program available to fishers, which involves voluntary participation. The second involves the creation of a special, separate boutique regime for gig workers. He finds both approaches are economically unfeasible. Are there other policy responses to the challenge of assisting unemployed gig workers? There are three that merit consideration. (i) For gig workers who seek to transition to more stable employment, it is possible to obtain retraining benefits and employment assistance through existing provincial workforce development agreements. (ii) A Temporary Unemployment Assistance (TUA) provision that would provide income assistance for the unemployed who cannot access EI and who should not be required to turn to social assistance. The benefits consist of forgivable loans in the form of a flat weekly benefit for a limited duration of time. (iii) Changes to the labour code to transform these gig employment relationships and the status of its workers such that they become dependent workers rather than independent contractors