cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/54868530
China’s leadership is moving to tighten oversight of the country’s vast and rapidly expanding gig economy workforce, that has become both economically essential and politically sensitive for the ruling Communist Party.
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These people are working under harsh conditions. Many delivery riders and drivers work extremely long hours for unstable pay while lacking basic labour protections, social insurance or pension coverage.
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In late April, the General Office of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and China’s State Council released new guidelines aimed at strengthening management over what Beijing calls “new employment groups”. The document, published through state-run Xinhua News Agency, outlined plans to intensify ideological supervision, expand political guidance and deepen Party influence over platform-based workers by 2027.
“The policy targets a workforce that now sits at the centre of China’s digital economy. Food delivery riders, ride-hailing drivers, couriers, e-commerce staff and livestream hosts have become indispensable to urban life in modern China. Yet the same workforce is increasingly viewed by authorities as difficult to monitor, difficult to organise and potentially difficult to control,” the article observes.
According to an analysis published in Qiushi, the CCP’s official journal, China’s gig workforce has reached around 84 million people — roughly one-fifth of the country’s employed population.
When broader categories of “flexible employment” are included, including freelancers, part-time staff and self-employed workers, Chinese state media estimates suggest the number exceeds 200 million.
However, some experts suggest that the number of people in China engaged in flexible employment is expected to reach 320 million this year, accounting for 44% of the employed population. According to Associate Prof Zhan Shaohua, Head of Sociology at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, the development is driven by employer cost pressures and an oversupplied labour market pushing workers toward flexible jobs, and warned that regulations have not kept pace, leaving worker protections insufficient
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For years, China’s economic rise relied heavily on manufacturing, infrastructure and property development. But slowing industrial growth, persistent weakness in the housing market and tighter conditions in the private sector have pushed millions into the gig economy.
In major Chinese cities, it has become common to see armies of delivery riders weaving through traffic under relentless algorithm-driven deadlines set by digital platforms competing for speed and efficiency.
The expansion of this workforce has created economic dependency while simultaneously generating social anxiety due to the low wages and poor working conditions.
The report points out that the newly-released directive repeatedly emphasises adherence to Xi Jinping’s political doctrine and urges workers to “listen to and follow the Party”.
It also calls for stronger “ideological and political guidance” and a top-down governance system designed to integrate gig workers more closely into existing Party structures. The language reflects a broader trend in modern Chinese governance, where political supervision increasingly overlaps with economic management and social control, said the report.
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Rights group have criticizes Beijing for these moves. The NGO Human Rights Watch criticizes that while the Chinese government pledged in April 2026 to strengthen social security, pay, and rest for gig workers, but the same pledge also calls for strengthening Chinese Communist Party control over them.
"It calls for gig workers to 'follow the Party' and that Party organizations maintain 'comprehensive coverage' over the new gig economy," the group criticizes.
"The Chinese government’s support for the ILO convention should not be measured by its rhetoric, but by whether gig workers can secure what the convention guarantees: just pay, safety, social security, and the right to organize."
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