China’s leadership is moving to tighten oversight of the country’s vast and rapidly expanding gig economy workforce, that has become both economically essential and politically sensitive for the ruling Communist Party. These people are working under harsh conditions. Many delivery riders and drivers work extremely long hours for unstable pay while lacking basic labour protections, social insurance or pension coverage.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) sees the gig economy not merely as a labour issue but as a potential source of instability. In late April, the General Office of the CCP and China’s State Council released new guidelines aimed at strengthening management over what Beijing calls “new employment groups. There is a series of plans to intensify ideological supervision, expand political guidance and deepen Party influence over platform-based workers by 2027.
The policy targets a workforce that now sits at the centre of China’s digital economy. Food delivery riders, ride-hailing drivers, couriers, e-commerce staff and livestream hosts have become indispensable to urban life in modern China. Yet the same workforce is increasingly viewed by authorities as difficult to monitor, difficult to organise and potentially difficult to control. Experts say the CCP’s official journal, China’s gig workforce has reached around 84 million people — roughly one-fifth of the country’s employed population. When broader categories of “flexible employment” are included, including freelancers, part-time staff and selfemployed workers, Chinese state media estimates suggest the number exceeds 200 million. China’s economic rise relied heavily on manufacturing, infrastructure and property development. But slowing industrial growth, persistent weakness in the housing market and tighter conditions in the private sector have pushed millions into the gig economy.
In major Chinese cities, it has become common to see armies of delivery riders weaving through traffic under relentless algorithm-driven deadlines set by digital platforms competing for speed and efficiency. The expansion of this workforce has created economic dependency while simultaneously generating social anxiety due to the low wages and poor working conditions. The newly-released directive repeatedly emphasises adherence to Xi Jinping’s political doctrine and urges workers to “listen to and follow the Party”. There is a call for stronger “ideological and political guidance” and a top-down governance system designed to integrate gig workers more closely into existing Party structures. The language reflects a broader trend in modern Chinese governance, where political supervision increasingly overlaps with economic management and social contro