Approaches towards addressing the misclassification of employment

This chapter reviews the approaches used until now to address the misclassification of employment in different countries. This reveals how some countries maintain the binary divide between employment and self-employment, and that the approach towards the grey zone between genuine self-employment and dependent employment has variously included: (1) presumptions that these are dependent employees and fall within the scope of employment protection legislation; (2) reversal of the burden of proving employee status; and (3) listing criteria that enable the classification of workers as either employees or self-employed. Meanwhile, it is revealed that other countries have sought to introduce a new hybrid legal category of employment relationship that provides workers in this grey zone with legal rights that would not exist under the legal status of self-employment. The collective responses towards dependent self-employment and the recent proposal of the International Labour Organization for a common definition of the dependent self-employment are also discussed.