Fairwork Ghana Ratings 2021: Labour Standards in the Platform Economy

The platform economy in Ghana has grown rapidly in recent years, with companies like Uber, Bolt and Black Ride in the ride-hailing space, and Jumia Food and Glovo in the delivery subsector. Such digital labour platforms are often heralded as offering a solution to the country’s persistent youth unemployment challenge, and indeed, an estimated 60,000 – 100,000 Ghanaians rely on the platform economy for their livelihoods. However, this rapid growth has also raised questions about the quality of work that these platforms provide.

This report presents the first set of Fairwork platform ratings for Ghana. Ten digital labour platforms—Black Ride, Eziban, Glovo, iFerch, Swift- Wheels, Bolt, Bolt Food, Jumia Food, Uber and Yango—were assessed on the basis of the Fairwork principles. The report provides a comparative overview of the current situation of the country’s platform economy, which will be updated on a yearly basis. By raising awareness of platform workers’ experiences in Ghana and elsewhere, Fairwork aims to assist workers, consumers, and regulators in building a fairer future of work in this burgeoning sector.

This report is the result of a year-long collaboration between the University of Ghana Business School, the University of Oxford (UK), and the WZB Berlin Social Science Centre (Germany).

An accessible version of the report is also available.