US Labor Secretary Says Most Gig Workers Should Be Classified as Employees, Prompting Shares of Uber, Lyft, Doordash and Grubhub To Crash

President Joe Biden's top labor official said Thursday that most gig workers in the United States should be classified as 'employees' deserving of related benefits, in what could be a policy shift that is likely to raise costs for companies that depend on contractors such as Uber and Lyft and impact millions of workers. From a report: Shares of Uber fell as much as 8 percent while Lyft dived as much as 12 percent. Doordash fell nearly 9 percent and Grubhub was down 3.3 percent. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh, a son of Irish immigrants and a former union member, has been expected to boost President Biden's efforts to expand workers' protections and deliver a win for the country's organized labor movement.

'We are looking at it but in a lot of cases gig workers should be classified as employees... in some cases they are treated respectfully and in some cases they are not and I think it has to be consistent across the board,' Walsh told Reuters in an interview, expressing his view on the topic for the first time. 'These companies are making profits and revenue and I'm not (going to) begrudge anyone for that because that's what we are about in America... but we also want to make sure that success trickles down to the worker,' he said.

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