Platform Fissurisation and Regulatory Challenges in China’s Gig Economy: The Case of Food Delivery Platform Work

Abstract: This study unpacks the distinctive features of layered employment models in China’s food delivery platform sector and assesses their implications for algorithmic management and the labour regulatory regime. It analyses the phenomenon of “platform fissurisation” to examine the impacts of layered employment, where gig workers are employed by third parties connected to the digital platform. The study focuses on the workplace practices of China’s largest food delivery platform, Meituan, to explore how the fissurisation of platform work interacts with algorithmic management to intensify labour control and shape worker precarity through mechanisms of rational control, normative control and collective control.