Most companies publish annual DEI reports. These reports track hiring numbers, promotion rates, pay equity, and representation across gender, race, and disability status. But there is one large group that almost never shows up in these reports — gig workers.
Freelancers, independent contractors, delivery drivers, and platform-based task workers are not counted as employees. Because of that, most corporate DEI frameworks do not include them. They fall into a legal and structural blind spot.
This is a significant problem. The gig economy is not small. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, approximately 15% of the U.S. workforce — over 25 million people — participates in some form of alternative work arrangement. McKinsey’s 2022 American Opportunity Survey put that number even higher, estimating that 36% of employed Americans engage in independent work in some form.
A large share of those workers are from underrepresented groups. That is not a coincidence. That is the problem.
Before going further, it helps to be precise about what DEI means in a formal employment context.
Diversity refers to the measurable representation of different demographic groups — race, gender, age, disability, national origin, sexual orientation — in a workforce.
Equity refers to removing systemic barriers so that all workers have fair access to pay, advancement, and opportunity. This is different from equality, which assumes everyone starts from the same place.
Inclusion refers to the degree to which workers feel they belong, are heard, and can participate fully in the organization’s culture and decisions.
In traditional employment, companies address DEI through structured policies: hiring audits, pay equity analysis, ERGs (Employee Resource Groups), mentorship pipelines, and HR grievance processes.
None of these mechanisms extend to gig workers by default. The gig relationship operates under a different legal structure — and that legal structure is the root cause of the problem.
The reason gig workers fall outside DEI protections is not accidental. It is a direct result of how they are classified.
Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, anti-discrimination protections apply to “employees.” The EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) enforces these protections. However, its jurisdiction does not automatically extend to independent contractors.
The IRS and Department of Labor use multi-factor tests — including behavioral control, financial control, and type of relationship — to determine whether a worker is an employee or a contractor. Courts also apply the “economic reality test” and the “ABC test” (used in states like California under AB5) to make this determination.
The legal classification of “independent contractor” exempts platforms from:
This does not mean platforms can openly discriminate without any legal risk. Some federal and state courts have extended certain protections to contractors through case law. But the baseline floor of protection is much lower than it is for employees.
The demographics of the gig workforce reveal a structural equity problem.
A 2023 Pew Research Center survey found that Black and Hispanic workers are overrepresented in app-based gig work — specifically in delivery, rideshare, and home services — compared to their share of the overall workforce. Workers in these roles typically earn below median wage, have no employer-provided benefits, and have almost no upward mobility within the platform structure.
Women make up a significant share of gig workers in caregiving platforms (e.g., home health aides, childcare providers, domestic workers). These are historically undervalued categories of work. Platforms in these categories often have weak pricing standards, unclear safety protocols for workers, and no formal HR function.
Workers with disabilities are increasingly turning to gig work because traditional employment environments can present access barriers. However, platforms are not required to provide reasonable accommodations under the ADA. A worker who needs scheduling flexibility due to a medical condition has no legal right to demand it from a platform.
Immigrants — including both documented and undocumented workers — are heavily represented in platform-based logistics and food delivery. They often face language barriers, lack familiarity with U.S. labor rights, and may have limited ability to pursue legal remedies even when wronged.
The pattern here is clear. The workers who most benefit from formal DEI protections are the same workers who are most likely to be classified outside of the legal framework that provides them.
Platforms often claim they are neutral. The algorithm sets the rules, so no individual bias is applied. This argument does not hold up under scrutiny.
Algorithmic bias in task assignment. Rating systems, acceptance rate thresholds, and task allocation algorithms can embed historical bias into outcomes. If a platform’s algorithm rewards workers who accept more tasks faster, workers with caregiving responsibilities — disproportionately women — may score lower and receive fewer opportunities. This is disparate impact, even without any discriminatory intent.
Customer-controlled ratings. Customers on many platforms rate workers after each transaction. Research from Harvard Business School and other institutions has found that Black drivers on rideshare platforms receive systematically lower ratings than white drivers for the same quality of service. Lower ratings translate directly to lower earnings and higher deactivation risk. Platforms have no consistent process for auditing this bias.
Geographic and zip code discrimination. Some platforms limit or prioritize services by zip code. In cities with residential segregation patterns, this can result in workers in lower-income, minority-majority neighborhoods receiving fewer opportunities. This mirrors the redlining patterns that housing policy has long tried to undo.
Opaque deactivation. When platforms deactivate workers, they often provide minimal explanation. Workers have no HR process, no grievance mechanism, and no equivalent of an employment tribunal. If deactivation tracks along demographic lines — even inadvertently — there is no accountability mechanism to detect or correct it.
A few large platforms have made voluntary commitments in the DEI space. It is worth examining what these commitments actually include.
Uber publishes an annual diversity report covering its corporate employees. It has set representation goals for women in leadership and underrepresented minorities. However, its driver workforce — the core gig labor pool — is explicitly excluded from this reporting framework.
Upwork and Fiverr both have marketplace policies against discrimination. However, enforcement is complaint-driven, not proactive. Neither platform conducts algorithmic audits for disparate impact or publishes demographic data on freelancer earnings.
Amazon Flex has faced lawsuits alleging racial bias in its delivery driver deactivation process. In 2021, a civil rights organization filed a complaint with the EEOC arguing that Flex’s use of facial recognition technology for identity verification had higher error rates for darker-skinned workers, resulting in disproportionate deactivation. Amazon disputed the findings, but the case highlighted the absence of any formal equity review process.
Task Rabbit provides some DEI language in its community guidelines, but it has no published data on demographic breakdown of taskers by income tier, task type, or deactivation rate.
The voluntary, report-based model is insufficient for two reasons. First, it excludes the most vulnerable worker population. Second, it is not subject to third-party audit or regulatory enforcement.
Regulators and legislators are beginning to address the gig economy’s structural equity gap, but progress is uneven.
California AB5 (2019) was the most aggressive attempt to reclassify gig workers as employees. It applied the ABC test to determine employment status, which would have brought millions of gig workers under full labor protections. Platforms spent over $200 million on Proposition 22 (2020), a ballot initiative that carved out app-based drivers from AB5. Prop 22 passed, but its constitutionality has been challenged in court.
The PRO Act (Protecting the Right to Organize Act) passed the U.S. House in 2021 but stalled in the Senate. It would have established a federal ABC test for worker classification.
The DOL’s 2024 Independent Contractor Rule under the Biden administration restored a multi-factor economic reality test that made it harder to classify workers as contractors. Whether this rule survives subsequent administrations is uncertain.
The EU Directive on Platform Work (2024) is further along. It establishes a legal presumption of employment for platform workers across EU member states unless platforms can prove otherwise. This is the most comprehensive regulatory shift globally, and it has direct implications for DEI because it brings platform workers under existing employment law protections.
At the state level, New York, Illinois, and Colorado have passed or proposed legislation extending some employment protections to gig workers. But none of these efforts yet includes a comprehensive DEI accountability framework for platforms.
Closing the DEI gap in the gig economy requires moving beyond corporate volunteerism. Here is what a structurally sound framework would include.
Platforms should be required to conduct regular audits of their task allocation, rating, and deactivation algorithms for disparate impact across protected class categories. This is similar to what the NYC Local Law 144 requires for automated employment decision tools used in hiring. Expanding this requirement to gig platforms would create a minimum accountability standard.
Platforms hold the data. They know what workers in different demographic groups earn, which areas they serve, and how long they stay on the platform. Publishing this data — disaggregated by race, gender, and geography — would allow regulators, researchers, and workers themselves to identify patterns.
Workers need a neutral, accessible process for challenging deactivation or algorithmic penalties. This does not necessarily require reclassifying all gig workers as employees. But it does require platforms to create structured appeal processes with defined timelines, documented reasoning, and review by a human decision-maker.
Platforms should have an incentive to voluntarily extend employment status — and with it, DEI protections — to high-tenure, dependent gig workers. Tax incentives or liability safe harbor provisions could encourage this without requiring full statutory reclassification for every gig relationship.
Several state-level proposals (and one federal proposal from the Obama era) have advanced the idea of portable benefits — a system where benefits like health coverage, paid leave, and professional training are attached to the worker, not the job. This would give gig workers access to many of the equity-supporting resources that traditionally flow through employment, without requiring full employee classification.
Policy change is slow. In the meantime, there are concrete steps gig workers can take to protect themselves and advocate for equitable treatment.
Document everything. Keep records of task history, earnings, ratings, and any communications with platform support. If a deactivation or sudden drop in opportunity occurs, documentation is essential for any legal challenge.
Know your state’s worker classification laws. The classification tests vary significantly by state. In California, the ABC test is more favorable to worker status than the federal economic reality test. Knowing which standard applies in your jurisdiction matters.
Connect with advocacy organizations. Groups like the Gig Workers Collective, National Domestic Workers Alliance, and Freelancers Union provide legal resources, organize collective action, and lobby for policy changes. Collective voice has already produced results in some markets.
File complaints with the EEOC if warranted. While Title VII protections are limited for contractors, the EEOC has pursued some cases involving gig workers — particularly where the economic reality of the relationship more closely resembles employment. Filing a complaint creates a public record and can trigger investigation.
DEI programs inside corporate headquarters do not mean much if the labor force doing essential work outside those walls is systematically excluded from basic equity protections.
The gig economy is not going away. Platform-based work is expanding into healthcare, legal services, financial services, and skilled trades. As it does, the demographics of who performs that work — and who benefits from it — will continue to reflect the structural inequities already visible in delivery and rideshare.
The question is whether regulators, platforms, and civil society will treat this as the equity problem it actually is — or whether gig workers will remain the footnote at the bottom of DEI reports that were never written to include them.
Are gig workers covered by any anti-discrimination laws? Some limited protections apply depending on the jurisdiction and the nature of the gig relationship. In cases where a worker functions more like an employee under the economic reality test, courts have extended some Title VII protections. However, coverage is not guaranteed and must typically be argued case by case.
Can a gig platform be sued for pay discrimination? It is legally complex but not impossible. The Equal Pay Act applies to employees, not contractors. However, some state-level equal pay laws have broader applicability, and Section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act — which prohibits racial discrimination in contracts — can apply to contractor relationships. Legal outcomes depend heavily on how the specific work relationship is characterized.
What is the ABC test and why does it matter for DEI? The ABC test presumes a worker is an employee unless the hiring entity can demonstrate three conditions: (A) the worker is free from control in performing the work, (B) the work is performed outside the usual course of the hiring entity’s business, and (C) the worker is customarily engaged in an independently established trade. Gig platforms often fail part B of this test, which is why they have fought hard against ABC test adoption. If more workers were classified as employees under ABC, they would automatically gain DEI-related protections.
Why don’t DEI reports include gig workers? Primarily because EEO-1 reporting — the federal form that tracks workforce demographics — only covers employees. Companies have no regulatory obligation to report on contractors, and doing so voluntarily would require collecting demographic data that raises its own legal and ethical questions under contractor law.
This article is intended for informational purposes and does not constitute legal advice. Workers who believe they have experienced discrimination in a gig work context should consult a licensed employment attorney in their jurisdiction.
The Diverseek podcast aims to create a platform for meaningful conversations, education, and advocacy surrounding issues of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in various aspects of society.