With better protections, can platform work in Singapore now be a lifelong career?

SINGAPORE: They both became platform workers to earn money while between jobs. Then they found it more difficult than expected to make their next career move, but that’s where the similarities end.
Mr Kelvin Lee, 50, has made his living as a delivery rider for four years, while Raj (who asked not to be identified by his full name), 33, has been a private-hire driver for nine months.
The older man is a diploma-holder who spent most of his career in construction. He lost his contract job in hospitality in 2020, during the pandemic, and thought he would return to the industry after COVID-19 blew over. But Mr Lee found that his priorities had changed to wanting to spend more time with family. 
He now earns a net S$3,000 (US$2,330) to S$4,000 a month working eight hours a day. He has no days off but estimates he works half the amount of time compared with his previous job, and for the same amount of money.
Mr Lee sees delivery work as a medium- to long-term job, and has accepted that he may be doing this until retirement, which he expects to be in his 60s or 70s.
Raj, however, was sure he’s only driving for the short term, after leaving a high-pressure job in sales at a digital analytics firm.
He now earns a gross income of about S$6,000 a month driving every weekday and half-days on weekends. His net income is S$3,500 after paying for his car installments and petrol.
The graduate was bullish about eventually moving on to a full-time job in digital marketing or business development. He said he was holding out for an expected salary of S$10,000 a month – what he used to draw.
Raj and Mr Lee are part of a varied group of around 70,000 platform workers in Singapore.
Earlier in September, Singapore passed legislation to become one of the first countries in the world that recognises platform workers as a distinct category, and strengthens their rights.
Their protections now span greater contributions to the compulsory Central Provident Fund (CPF) savings plan – including from employers – as well as mandatory work injury insurance coverage and improved representation in industrial negotiations.
With these moves, especially to better cover retirement and housing needs through CPF, questions have been raised about whether platform work has become a sustainable, even lifelong career option.
Mr Lee is content with his delivery work because his financial commitments are light; he’s earning more than he would in other jobs; and he doesn’t expect much career progression at his age. He’s also confident that platform jobs will not dry up.
But he wouldn’t recommend young people be full-time platform workers. “There’s no career progression, and there’s always a limit (to what) you can earn.”
Raj was just as concerned for young, better-educated platform workers.
“I do worry about people who have studied, who could contribute in a much larger fashion to the economy, but are deciding to just continue driving private-hire (vehicles) because they enjoy the flexibility of this job,” he said.
He knows two drivers who are graduates, one with a master’s degree, who have stayed on despite not initially approaching platform work as a first choice.
Aged around 30 and unmarried, these friends of Raj’s are content to keep at it as they also have no family-related commitments or expenses yet.
While some treat platform work as transitional, a substantial portion see it as a long-term career choice, said Dr Mathew Mathews, principal research fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) and head of its Social Lab.
“Sometimes because it has much lower barriers for entry, they find the earnings … comparable to other jobs, and they have a preference for work where you do not have to directly report to someone,” he added.
In parliament, Senior Minister of State for Manpower Koh Poh Koon talked about the precarity of platform work and the “finely balanced middle ground” struck between flexibility and support in the new suite of protections rolled out by the government.
But platform workers have already expressed concerns about the impact of higher CPF contributions on their take-home pay. Some have said they would not opt into the scheme, which is mandatory only for platform workers turning 30 or younger in 2025.
Since 2020, the Land Transport Authority has set a minimum age of 30 to apply for the vocational licence for private-hire driving. 
Asked about the policy intent of the new protections, Dr Mathews, whose areas of research include platform work, said he did not think it was to nudge workers away from what is legitimate work that benefits the economy.
“However, the Bill does allow for some correction at least in perceptions to younger workers who may be keen to venture into full-time platform work based on the erroneous idea that platform work is much more lucrative than traditional work.
“That certainly seemed to be the case when earnings from platform work did not result in CPF deductions. Now, with CPF deductions, the average earnings for platform work and traditional technical work will not be too far apart,” he said.
For his part, Mr Lee said he was likely to opt in for higher CPF contributions so that he can continue to use it to pay off his housing loan. The government’s Platform Workers CPF Transition Support initiative also influenced his decision.
But Raj said he was unlikely to do the same as he does not expect to be driving for long, and wants to maximise his take-home pay.
Mr Shamil Zainuddin, a research associate at IPS and PhD student at University of California, San Diego, said the new protections clearly signal that government and society recognise platform work as a permanent fixture of the labour market.
It’s unclear if the protections would make platform work more or less attractive, but combined with more media and academic attention, people entering the industry “now will do so with their eyes wide open”, he added.
“This differs from those who joined the industry in its early days when workers didn’t fully understand what they were getting into and protections were sorely inadequate.”
The sustainability of platform work also depends on whether it affords opportunities for upskilling and career development, including transitioning to other professions.
When this was raised during parliamentary debates, Dr Koh’s reply was that platform workers can tap on the government’s career coaching and SkillsFuture support for mid-career changes.
Engaging in platform work for longer makes it harder to develop skills and return to a setting to work with colleagues in teams, said Dr Mathews.
“Workers have told us that the physical labour makes it very hard for them then to get back to learning after they finish their shifts,” he added.
“Employers may not think that the experience gained doing platform work is portable and adds any value to a potential job.”
Raj, for example, did not want to be identified by his full name because he was actively applying for executive roles. He has kept his work as a private-hire driver out of his resume and job interviews.
“The stigma is always there that this is not a respectable job. And I understand, because you don’t need to be very qualified to do this job. You don’t need to be educated,” he said.
Nonetheless, both Mr Lee and Raj are exploring ways to keep their options open when not on the road.
The latter does part-time consulting in digital marketing to keep up to date with the industry. While his ideal next role is in business development, he has also enrolled in a programme to get the local qualifications needed to teach adult learners, so that he can be an educator as a fallback.
Mr Lee meanwhile plans to take advantage of SkillsFuture support to embark on a course in information technology, as his backup option.
For now, the stronger protections will cover ride-hailing and delivery services, which make up 93 per cent of all platform work in Singapore.
In future, platform work could also potentially include other services like caregiving, cleaning and beauty and wellness.
Mr Shamil said it was clear that platform work would likely expand into other sectors and that “policy will follow suit to provide protections”.
He was more concerned about how the digital interface of platform work could complicate traditional relationships between managers and workers.
“Who are the bosses of gig workers? Looking at the smartphone app controlling, rewarding and monitoring these workers, the bosses don’t seem human,” he said.
Instead, a growing swathe of the working population is being managed by algorithmic systems that only a select few experts, what he called “the coding elite”, understand. 
These opaque algorithms often lead to “fluctuating incomes and non-transparent work assignments”, Mr Shamil added.
During parliamentary debates, lawmakers called for more transparency and guardrails around platform algorithms, with some suggesting an auditing process to make sure they do not, for one, discriminate against workers who opt in for CPF.
Mr Shamil echoed these calls, saying that both platforms and regulators should understand exactly how algorithms make decisions on job matters.
He believes the union-like platform work associations that will represent workers should also have digital experts who can understand and negotiate technical matters related to the platform’s technology. 
“The truth is that we don’t yet fully understand the long-term consequences of what experts term algorithmic management on workers, especially when it comes to fairness and transparency,” he said.
“However, as this milestone Bill signifies, workers’ welfare and rights matter in Singapore, and we are ready to devise novel solutions informed by empirical data to protect their interests even as technology rapidly changes things.”