Acas Updates Guidance On Employment Status To Help ‘Gig Economy’ Employers

Employers will welcome updated Acas guidance on the status of different types of employee and worker, following various recent rulings that purported self-employed contractors working in the ‘gig economy’ can in fact be ‘workers’ and entitled to basic employment rights.

The phrase ‘gig economy’ refers to work (often individual tasks) carried out under short-term contracts, or as a freelancer, as opposed to permanent jobs carried out by employees.

The updated Acas guidance, Employment status, aims to provide clarity on the different ways people can work, and the employment rights to which they are entitled. The section on those working as self-employed contractors or through ‘umbrella’ companies has been expanded in the light of recent legal rulings relating to Uber drivers, bicycle couriers and plumbers working in the gig economy. In all these cases, those taken on as self-employed contractors with no employment rights were in fact treated by the tribunals and courts as ‘workers’, and therefore entitled to basic employment rights such as the national minimum wage and holiday pay.

The guidance also covers workers on zero hours contracts, agency workers, fixed term workers, apprentices, workers with no fixed base, piece workers and volunteers.

Operative date

• Now

Recommendation

• Download the Acas guidance from the Acas website