Pushing Beyond Limit: Has Gig Work Exacerbated Precarious and Psychological Contracts in China?

This chapter examines the rhetoric surrounding the segmented labour market and flexible work arrangements within the Chinese gig economy. Sadly, precarity and psychological contracts have become a recurring decimal in the face of the burgeoning gig era as platformisation tends to have changed how workers sell their labour and how the labour (power) is remotely managed. The platform-mediated gig work is considered to be characterised by the anathema of psychological contracts and precariousness laced with job insecurity, risk-offloading, unstable pay, inadequate labour protection, and loss of labour power. Thus, we examine the labour market segmentation viz-a-viz the labour process that employs algorithmic management practices with its attendant impact on the platform workers. While we acknowledge a growing literature on platform-mediated works, the dynamics of labour precarity, processes, and psychological contracts to the detriment of a more relational approach is often ignored. An attempt is made to interrogate the future of work that tends to be rooted in flexible work arrangements exacerbated by technology. Thus, there may be an urgent need to standardise employment contracts, avoid salvation wages, promote job security, and ensure a conducive work environment for the platform workers.