Governments handled an array of risks: taxes pooled our collective incomes, funding relatively generous welfare payments that cushioned the effects of job loss. But labelling drivers contractors, so that they have fewer rights and find it harder to organise collectively, makes such pressure even easier to apply. When it comes to job loss and redundancy, we also have one of the OECD’s least protected workforces. The welfare safety net needs further repair, so that long-term job loss doesn’t spell disaster for the families thus affected. But such steps must form part of something larger: a society-wide recognition that the biggest risks – job loss, ill health, recessions, poverty and so on – cannot be shunted onto individuals.

Source: Stuff December 16, 2021 23:24 UTC