What Does it Mean to Quit a Job You Were Never Required to Work?

By Michael Maffie

April 19, 2022

Keywords: Uber, disintermediation, labor relations

The popular press is full of stories about gig workers “quitting” at an astounding rate, with some claiming that more than 90% of gig workers “quit” within six months. Yet what does it mean to quit a job that you are never required to work? And why are there so many stories about people who get “trapped” in these jobs?

In my forthcoming article in the British Journal of Industrial Relations, I look at how and why ride-hail drivers leave the industry. From this research, I find that quitting a gig is much more complex than merely closing an app. In fact, I find that many drivers do not “quit” so much as they steal clients from these services and strike out on their own, becoming “pirate” (independent) taxi operators.

The cost structure of gig work is the heart of this article. I find that drivers immediately experience the benefits of working a gig – freedom from a potentially oppressive boss, annoying co-workers, or a set schedule. Yet in the background, there are delayed costs – cell phone plans, maintenance, self-employed benefit plans, and gaps in resumes. These costs appear over time.

In the article, I find that many gig workers underestimate these costs because gig companies “upsell” the benefits – freedom from a boss and emphasizing the gross, not net, pay – while downplaying the costs. Yet this illusion is unsustainable, and drivers go through what one of my interviewees called “the dawning”: they finally see how little they are actually making.

After “the dawning”, I find that those with other means of making ends meet stop driving and move on to another line of work. Yet for those that have come to rely on ride-hail income to pay the bills, I find they start to recruit clients to transport “off app” trips.

Or, in the words of one of my interviewees, they “become pirates”.

This research grants insight into the complicated yet booming world of platform work. On the one hand, platform workers appear to genuinely enjoy the ability to work outside of the time demands of a traditional employment contract. Yet on the other hand, companies that “oversell” the benefits of working a gig generate enormous turnover and workers stealing their clients for “off app” work. This underground “gig economy” is less well understood and needs further investigation.

Additionally, this study calls into question corporate surveys that find gig workers are happy. As most workers stop working when they realize the true cost structure of ride-hail, these surveys may be evidence of successful deception on the part of these companies.

Yet somewhat paradoxically, the “pirates” of ride-hail are fulfilling the gig economy’s promise of independent, empowered work.