This article examines the impact of the pandemic on ride-hailing drivers and their mitigation strategies during lockdown in Africa. Ride-hailing has emerged as one of the latest paid-work opportunities for the continent's many unemployed. Yet, ride-hailing companies such as Uber and Bolt misclassify drivers to avoid regulation and responsibilities towards workers’ welfare. Drawing on 34 in-depth interviews with ride-hailing drivers, driver representatives and trade unions in South Africa and Kenya, this article makes two arguments. First, the gig economy in Africa provides work opportunities for the unemployed on the continent and simultaneously vitiates the working conditions through the commodification and informalisation of work. Second, the state-directed emergency measures act as a veneer to capital's efforts to commodify labour and the gig economy platforms have emerged as primary tools for it. Our account points to an urgent need for better regulatory systems to hold platform companies accountable and a collective bargaining mechanism in the gig economy.

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This article examines the impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic on ride‐hailing drivers in Africa. It argues that though ride‐hailing offers paid‐work to some African workers, the commodified and informalised nature of this work results in poor job quality. The effects of which are greatly amplified during the pandemic. Drawing on a mixed methods approach: in‐depth interviews with ride‐hailing drivers in Nairobi and digital ethnography, it also provides a narrative of ‘hustle’ to outline strategies of resilience, reworking, and resistance among informal workers. It concludes by highlighting the need for adequate regulatory frameworks and on‐the‐ground solidarity networks to ensure decent working conditions and to push back against precarity in the gig economy.

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