The Fairwork Egypt 2021 Report presents the first round of Fairwork ratings for the Egyptian platform economy. The report evaluates the working conditions of seven digital labour platforms spanning four different sectors: ride-hailing, courier-delivery, tutoring, and home services.
- The Fairwork Egypt Ratings 2021 assess 7 of the country’s location-based digital labour platforms against five principles of fairness—fair pay, fair conditions, fair contracts, fair management, and fair representation—giving each platform a fairness rating out of ten. FilKhedma, a platform offering a variety of home services, leads the 2021 table with 5 points. Mrsool (courier-delivery) and Orcas (tutoring) are tied in second place with 4 points. Swvl (bus hailing) scored 3 points. Talabat (a delivery platform), Mongez (courier-delivery), and Uber (ride-hailing) are at the bottom with 1 point each.
- Ride-hailing services were the first type of gig work to break into the Egyptian market, with the launch of Uber in 2014. Since then, there has been an expansion in platform services beyond ride-hailing, particularly in the delivery sector.
- Nevertheless, and despite a growing number of new platforms, the platform economy still represents a small niche within Egypt’s large informal economy. It is estimated to include anywhere from 100,000 to 200,000 workers, about 90% of whom are Uber drivers.
- In Egypt, the majority of gig workers are classified as independent contractors rather than employees.
- In March 2021, the Egyptian government announced that it planned to “identify and support 2 million gig workers in the country by the end of this year”, according to Labour Ministry spokesman Haitham Saad El-Din. In order to do so, the Ministry plans to register gig workers’ employment status as “irregular employment”, which will enable workers to access free social security insurance including healthcare coverage, life insurance and disability cover, and other state welfare programs