Redefining Worker Status in the Digital Economy: A Study of Gig and Platform Labour under India’s New Labour Codes

The four new labour codes notified in November 2025 are regarded as a turning point in the legal status of gig and platform labour, and the Code on Social Security, 2020 (SS Code) is the main place of change. The Social Security Code, which is the first to define such workers as gig workers and platform workers, create a specific social security framework, and require the contributions of aggregators to a welfare fund, partially addresses the historical uncovering of such workers by formal labour and social-security frameworks. Combined with the Code on Wages (CW), the Industrial Relations Code (IR Code) and the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code (OSH Code), the new framework hopes to bring wage, safety and limited organisational protections to workers, whose labour is mediated by algorithms, as opposed to traditional employers. The main research question explored in the paper is how, and to what degree, can the four new labour codes be practically implemented to improve the position of gig workers in India, and how they are conceptualising gig and platform work as a specific category of regulation. In theory, the paper challenges the legal definitions of gig/platform and unorganised workers and how this relates to the traditional employee/independent contractor dichotomy, whether the codes simply reframe precarious work or radically reorganize the relationship between worker and employee. Substantively, it provides an analysis of the SS Code stipulations on registration, national and state boards, scheme and aggregator contributions, and wage and OSH guarantees, to determine the extent to which the emergent model fulfills constitutional undertakings concerning social security and fair conditions of work, and complies with the emerging ILO standards on platform labour. The study methodology is qualitative and doctrinal. It carefully examines legal documents, statutory legislation and case law, which includes IFAT litigation and the recognition of cab-aggregator drivers by the Karnataka High Court of the application of protective laws as well as scholarly literature on the regulation of platforms, which is emerging. This framework evaluates how novel governance frameworks, including the digital registration, and algorithmic surveillance, i.e., meaningfully contribute to the bargaining powers and social security of the gig workers in the fast-growing digital labour market in India.