Adelaide's gig economy reshapes employment as platform work grows

More than 95,000 South Australians now earn income through digital platforms — spanning rideshare, food delivery, freelance professional services, and short-term accommodation — making platform work a significant component of the state's labour market and raising questions about how employment regulation, superannuation, and workplace safety frameworks adapt to workforce arrangements that do not fit neatly within the traditional employee-employer relationship.

South Australian platform economy data compiled by the Centre for Work, Organisation and Wellbeing at Flinders University found that 28 per cent of platform workers relied on gig income as their primary source of earnings, while 44 per cent used it to supplement employment income. The prevalence of dual-income households combining traditional employment with platform work suggests the gig economy has become a structural feature of working-age South Australians' economic lives rather than a peripheral or transitional arrangement.

Industrial Relations Minister Zoe Bettison said the state government was watching federal developments in portable entitlements and minimum standards for platform workers closely, and had made representations to the federal government supporting a national approach rather than a patchwork of state-by-state regulation. "South Australian platform workers deserve the same basic protections as other workers. The question is how you design those protections for a model that is genuinely different," she said.

Platform operators active in Adelaide — Uber, Menulog, Airtasker, and Airbnb among the largest — argue that the flexibility of platform work is its primary appeal to workers and that traditional employment regulation would damage the accessibility and affordability of services to consumers.

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