Unemployment protection for self-employed and platform workers in Belgium

Abstract

This article analyses unemployment protection for platform workers and the self-employed in Belgium. In Belgium, the self-employed were traditionally not covered for unemployment, but since the 1990s, several steps have been taken to provide some protection. The scheme in place, now called the ‘bridging right’, has been regularly revised and extended, with the most recent reforms in 2022 and 2023. The Belgian legislator also took some initiatives to regulate platform work, by adopting, for example, legislation on the labour status of platform workers (2022). Platform workers are not treated as a separate category in Belgium with regard to unemployment, and they fall either under the scheme for employees or for the self-employed. In this paper, we will highlight the difficulties faced by platform workers in accessing unemployment protection, both under the scheme for employees and under the self-employed scheme. The analysis in this article shows that although important steps have been taken, several coverage gaps remain, in particular for platform workers, the solo (economically dependent) self-employed and persons who work in self-employment as a side activity.