Ius Laboris, the leading international alliance providing legal services in employment, immigration and pensions law, of which Sagardoy is a founding member, has published the second edition of the report “The classification conundrum: logging onto the gig economy”. The report offers a comparative analysis of how countries worldwide are addressing the key legal and employment-related challenges arising from digital platform work.
Gisella Alvarado, Senior Associate at Sagardoy, contributed to the drafting of the report as an expert for Spain, working alongside leading specialists from across the alliance and the Ius Laboris central team. Román Gil, Partner at Sagardoy, contributed in his capacity as a member of the International Policy Group of Ius Laboris, the international forum responsible for analysing the main employment law challenges and for providing policy recommendations to major institutions and valuable insights for employers worldwide.
The report explores the delicate balance between two competing objectives: ensuring adequate rights and protections for workers, while preserving the flexibility that characterises many digital platform business models. From this perspective, it examines how the ongoing debate around employment classification — including employee, independent contractor and intermediate categories — continues to shape legal and policy responses at a global level.
Drawing on a comparative analysis of 43 jurisdictions, this updated edition reviews the different approaches countries are taking to regulate platform work. Some have introduced platform‑specific definitions and baseline rights for workers; others are developing new mechanisms to determine employment status, strengthening enforcement to tackle misclassification, or combining elements of these approaches. The report also highlights the continuing central role of the courts, which apply traditional employment law tests to rapidly evolving business models and, in some cases, reach divergent outcomes even for similar platforms.
With a strong practical focus, the publication serves as a valuable tool for both employers and policymakers. For international employers, it provides clarity on the direction of travel across jurisdictions and helps anticipate compliance risks and operational challenges in a dynamic regulatory environment. For legislators and regulators, it offers a comparative evidence base that can support balanced, forward‑looking decision‑making.
At Sagardoy, we welcome this new contribution by Ius Laboris to the rigorous analysis of the major challenges facing today’s labour markets and reaffirm our commitment to the generation of globally relevant legal knowledge through the active involvement of our team.
