On the corners of Mexico City, Bogotá, or Lima, it is common to see delivery workers with cube-shaped backpacks slung over their shoulders, waiting for the next notification on their cell phones. This image sums up the promise of digital work: independence, mobility, and digital connection. For many, this type of work represents a way out of unemployment or traditional informality. However, behind the narrative of modernity lies an ambiguous reality.
The gig economy refers to a labor market characterized by short-term jobs and pay-per-task schemes coordinated through digital platforms that connect workers with clients. These tasks can include deliveries, transportation, domestic assistance, or online professional services. In Latin America and the Caribbean, this type of employment has grown rapidly in recent years, driven by internet expansion, lack of formal employment, and, above all, the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, in a region without universal unemployment insurance mechanisms, work through digital platforms functioned as a lifeline.
Opportunity for some, barrier for others
In Latin America and the Caribbean, technological transformation is advancing rapidly, but not always equitably. As warned by the Regional Human Development Report 2025, Under Pressure: Recalibrating the Future of Development, prepared by the United Nations Development Programme, the impact of new technologies on employment opens opportunities while deepening existing vulnerabilities.
There is no doubt that these platforms have opened opportunities where obstacles previously existed. Young people without work experience, migrants struggling to validate their degrees, women with caregiving responsibilities, and residents of small cities find in these apps a way to earn income. Their appeal lies in flexibility and low entry requirements. Being able to connect during available hours, combine activities, and avoid the filters of formal employment offers valuable adaptability in contexts of high vulnerability.
However, the income-generating potential and amenities they offer conceal profound structural shortcomings. Gig work is characterized by low and volatile earnings, lack of employment contracts, and absence of social protection. It is a model in which the platform assumes the role of intermediary in the labor relationship, connecting independent workers with clients. This means that workers do not have an employer, and therefore, the protections that labor legislation promotes for salaried employees are not applicable to gig workers.
In Montevideo, for example, an Uber driver may earn less than a conventional taxi driver if one considers actual working hours, fuel, vehicle maintenance, and waiting time. Moreover, pay-per-task implies that part of the time spent on activities such as connecting, waiting for orders, and preparing proposals is unpaid. On platforms such as Workana—which connects freelancers with clients seeking digital or remote services—workers spend up to a third of their workday on unpaid activities, and still face difficulties accessing projects if they lack a good rating or compete with freelancers from countries where costs are lower.
Added to this is the monopsony power of the platforms: a few companies setting the rules of the game and conditions of access to the work of millions of people. Digital reputation becomes a currency, but one that is fragile and opaque. Poor ratings, arbitrary disconnections, or changes in algorithms can leave a worker without income or explanation, and with no effective mechanism for appeal.
New forms of exclusion
Although inclusive in some respects, the gig economy also reinforces existing inequalities. Access to the internet, digital devices, and technological skills remains highly unequal in the region. People living in rural areas or with limited infrastructure face nearly insurmountable barriers to integration.
Female participation, meanwhile, drops drastically on platforms that require physical presence, where risks of harassment and lack of safety conditions discourage their involvement. In addition, workers with low levels of education or limited English proficiency are excluded from the best opportunities offered by global platforms.
The paradox is clear: those who most need these opportunities are also those who face the greatest obstacles in accessing them. And by operating in a regulatory vacuum, these platforms amplify the risk that gig work will become a new face of old informality.
From exception to norm
Work on digital platforms is no longer a novelty. It has consolidated as a form of urban employment in the region. But its unregulated expansion is eroding the basic principles of decent work protection. The point is not to halt innovation, but to channel it. To recognize that technology can be an enabler of development, but only if accompanied by public policies that guarantee minimum conditions of dignity, protection, and equity.
Rethinking the regulatory framework for digital work is urgent. This involves legally recognizing the labor relationship in cases where it applies, expanding social protection mechanisms for independent workers, ensuring algorithmic transparency, and promoting collective organization in this new labor ecosystem. Without these actions, platform work will continue to be a mirage: a promise of inclusion that, in practice, reproduces exclusion with a new interface.
Ultimately, the question is not whether digital platforms should remain, but how we want them to remain. As a tool for prosperity or as a cog in a more sophisticated form of precariousness. And that answer, more than technological, will depend on public policy decisions.
This article is based on the findings of the 2025 Regional Human Development Report, titled Under Pressure: Recalibrating the Future of Development, prepared by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Latin America and the Caribbean.
*Machine translation, proofread by Ricardo Aceves.
Autor
Senior Researcher at the Center for Distributive, Labor, and Social Studies (CEDLAS) at the National University of La Plata, Argentina.
Policy Specialist at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for Latin America and the Caribbean.
