On 18 August 2022, The Business Times interviewed TSMP Law Corporation partner and head of employment and labour, Ian Lim, in an article on how the Work Injury Compensation Act (Wica) could be applied to platform workers.

Journalist Sharanya Pillai noted that there needs to be consensus between the gig worker and the platform he works for, in order to implement Wica. Ian offered, “One possibility is to say that if a person spends more than x number of hours each day working for one platform, that person could be considered an employee of that platform – or perhaps more appropriately, an intermediate class of ‘worker’ for the platform.”

On the latter aspect, relevant legislative changes would be needed to accommodate such an intermediate class. Lim pointed to how the UK has 3 classifications for employment status: employees, independent contractors and an in-between category of “worker”.