Only 1 in 10 gig workers confident of managing rising costs: survey
JUST one in 10 freelance workers are confident of their ability to manage rising costs, and only two in 10 consistently meet their monthly savings targets after expenses, a survey released on Tuesday (Nov 14) has found.
Conducted by Singlife, PwC and the Singapore FinTech Association (SFA), the survey polled 500 gig workers in July about their sense of financial freedom. Participants included delivery riders, taxi and private-hire drivers and freelance office, food and beverage and digital services workers.
Rising daily expenses were cited as the top financial concern by 62 per cent of the workers surveyed. A significant proportion of their financial expenses goes towards their basic and household needs, Singlife, PwC and the SFA noted in their report.
“Alongside the impact of the increasing costs of daily expenses and necessities, irregular income is another factor which piles on the financial pressure faced by these platform workers,” they said.
Four in five of those surveyed earn a monthly personal income of S$4,000 and below, even though nearly half (48 per cent) of them clock more than 40 hours a week, the report noted. Some 81 per cent of them rely on gig work as their only source of income.
More worryingly, half of those who work more than 60 hours a week still do not make enough to meet their savings goals, after settling monthly expenses.
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Retirement planning is a low priority; only one in 10 of those surveyed had taken any steps to secure their financial future.
Overall, the average gig worker rated themselves 50 out of 100 when asked how “financially free” they feel. This is about 10 points lower than the financial freedom score of the average Singaporean, based on an earlier study.
Platform companies’ concerns
The gig worker survey was carried out in light of the Singapore government’s recent steps to better protect ride-hailing and delivery workers, also known as “platform workers”, who serve on-demand apps.
As part of the survey, PwC, Singlife and the SFA also conducted qualitative interviews with nine platform operators in Singapore, including Deliveroo, foodpanda, Gojek and Grab.
The companies raised concerns about the government’s decision to mandate at-work injury coverage for platform workers through the Workplace Injury Compensation Act (Wica) and by making Central Provident Fund (CPF) contributions compulsory for younger cohorts of workers.
While the operators agreed with the principle of work-injury coverage, they cited challenges in implementing Wica.
“The platform companies do not have existing resources to manage the claims reporting processes. Also, with the growing size of the industry, ensuring that the legitimacy of claims could be a challenge for these platform companies, as they do not undertake such a role at the moment,” the report said.
The operators also said that mandating CPF “could cause a negative circular effect on the entire food delivery and ride-hailing ecosystem”, the report added.
The platform companies called for investments in technology and operations, as well as in sufficient testing and iteration, to ensure a smooth rollout of Singapore’s new platform worker protections.
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