Federal budget tackles gig economy with prohibition against misclassification under Canada Labour Code

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Source: Government of Canada

Editor’s note: The following text is taken from the 2023 federal budget.

When workers are engaged in a typical employer-employee relationship, but are misclassified as something other than employees, they miss out on the same labour rights, protections, and entitlements as traditional employees.

For those in the gig economy, such as those who rely on an app or digital platform for their source of work, this can have a real impact on the stability and security of their livelihoods. As a first step in addressing this, in 2021, the federal government made illegal the intentional misclassification of employees in the federally regulated private sector.

Budget 2023 proposes to amend the Canada Labour Code to improve job protections for federally regulated gig workers by strengthening prohibitions against employee misclassification.

This will help ensure all federally regulated workers receive the protections and employer contributions to which they are entitled, including Employment Insurance and the Canada Pension Plan.

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