Single correct option
The gig economy is often celebrated for the flexibility it offers workers, who can in principle choose when and how much to work. Yet studies of platform workers consistently find that most of them do not choose gig work as a preferred lifestyle but as a fallback after losing more stable employment, and that the promised flexibility is frequently constrained by algorithms that penalise workers for declining jobs or working irregular hours. The freedom on offer, in other words, is real but narrower, and less voluntarily chosen, than the marketing suggests.
- A. Gig work should be banned because algorithms exploit workers.
- B. The flexibility gig platforms advertise is genuine but more limited and less freely chosen than commonly portrayed.
- C. Most gig workers actively prefer gig work over traditional employment.
- D. Algorithms have made gig work more flexible than it used to be.
Show answer and solution
Answer: (B) The flexibility gig platforms advertise is genuine but more limited and less freely chosen than commonly portrayed.
The paragraph concedes flexibility is 'real' but stresses it is 'narrower, and less voluntarily chosen' than advertised, and that most workers turn to gig work as a fallback, not a preference — matching option B. Option A overstates the passage's claim into a policy prescription it never makes; C and D contradict the paragraph's actual claims.
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