let's go and take a look at what is on the show. the cost of living is going up, so are the numbers of us taking on super temporary work. if you have hailed an uber or ordered food from an app, the person who delivered it was working in the so—called gig economy. more than the quarter of the world work in temporary employment. so what does this massive disruption means forjobs, and society? i'm going to be talking the gig economy with these two. there they are. the boss of the australian—based work platform airtasker and the man leading the policies to regulate the sector, european commissioner, nicholas schmit. also on the show i am going to be talking about supply chains, prices and the economic pressures of doing business in turkey where inflation is running at 80%. i've got the big boss of the whitegoods company arcelik which owns brands like becco and grundig.

wherever you arejoining me from around the world, once again a big hello and a warm welcome to the show. you know, we have seen lots of massive disruptions to the global economy in the last few years. the pandemic shut the world down and now war and sanctions are driving prices up. but before covid, the world of workers was going through another disruption and a digital one at that. technology companies were launching platforms like uber, justeat and deliveroo where people could work for less than an hour if they chose, rather than sign contracts for work for years. companies worth billions have been created leaving regulators

and competitors running to catch up. statistics in this sector are difficult to come by. one american survey found that one in three workers in the united states are now freelance and their numbers the great resignation, following the pandemic. in india an official government think tank thinks there will be more than 23 million workers in the gig economy by the end of the decade. and in the european union it's projected that 43 million people will work in the gig economy by 2025. none or few of those people are being given sick pay or pension contributions. it's work with no safety net. but the gig economy does give those who work for it and those who use their work incredible flexibility. workers can choose their hours, fitting it around otherjobs and commitments like childcare or helping elderly relatives. and with the cost of living pressures on the rise, the projections are that more of us are going to be taking up side hustles. this sector, it's exploded leaving regulators playing catch up. uma rani is the senior economist at the

international labour office. regulations fall behind technological innovations and here it is been a very classic case where, you know, you have technological innovation through entrepreneurship of uber that came about and itjust made its way around the regulations and then expanded across the world and as a result of it, you know, you have multiple other models that have been based on it, which have come across a whole range of sectors whether you're talking about delivery services or care sectors or beauty workers or domestic workers or even medical consultations. so you have a whole range of sectors where these platforms have come out. and regulations are far behind and i think that there is a positive that i will still say,

at the european union level you have the european commission which has come out with a eu directive proposal which is a very good step forward and i think that we will have to see how that overplays in the coming months and what it would mean then for the platform. uma rani from ilo there, and she mentions that the european commission set out its proposals to regulate this market in december. it wants to make it more clear across all of its countries when someone is an employee and entitled to the benefits of that and when they are not. so, i caught up with the european union commissionerforjobs and social rights. commissioner nicolas schmit, a real pleasure having you on the show. let's start with this. the sector is already large. your own estimates that in 2020 gig economy in the eu generated something like $14 billion, that was before the pandemic. so i am wondering, why has it taken so long to clarify when someone is employed

and when they are not? this is a very fast revolution and nobody really understood what was happening. so this was driven by technology. this was driven by new companies, new business models and now the time has come when we have to adjust and we have to really take into account the different aspects including the economic aspects, the social aspects, the competition aspects. and give these new business models their right place in our old—world economy. do you think their digital platforms have taken advantage of the law, which, if we we are frank, can lead to several interpretations? there was not really a law for digital platforms. it was just the, well, i think digital platform creators were smart enough to find some loopholes and try to build a business model. and you say up to 5 million employees in the eu are currently

misclassified as self—employed instead of employed. and that means they are not getting things like sick pay and other benefits. yet the process you undertaken is going to take many years. what do you expect to happen in the meantime? it will still take some time because we are still at the negotiation phase with member states. and then in the second phase also with the european parliament. but i'm quite optimistic that by the end of next year at least we will have a european directive. and this will then be used by member states again two years. in the meantime i think, the smartest platform, they will adjust, they will adapt because they will prepare for what is already coming. and we see this evolution already very clearly, because what they need now is also some legal security, first. we have seen legal

certainty is important. we have seen in the uk when a big platform had to adapt to a ruling by the supreme court. we see it in other member states. so i think the evolution has already started and we see also that a certain number of platforms already have changed their modelling in terms of giving their workers a certain number of rights or employ them as normal workers. do you anticipate more people having to take on these so—called side hustles because of the cost of living crisis that we are always during? this is a very important question about our society at large. because if people have to take differentjobs, several jobs to make ends meet. we are in a society with a lot of social problems.

and we are already in some areas in this precise context. this is the question of the value of work, this is a question of work poverty. and this is also a question of inequality in our societies. so i think what we have to aim at is more quality of work, fair wages and fairness in our society because more unequal societies are not better societies. are gig economy workers unfairly treated at the moment, because some will argue that the flexibility is very important to many people? i would not say that all gig workers are treated unfairly, i would never say that. there are workers that are treated quite fairly, there is a great diversity within the gig economy at this respect. now, flexibility i accept flexibility. because indeed in our society and this

business model, but also given the demand, how demands are evolving, we need flexibility because this is the only way to respond to this demand, we cannot have absolutely rigid ways of working. but flexibility should not mean i have no rights, i have no possibility when i am sick to get some protection. i have no right afterwards to a pension or i have no right to collective bargaining, to co—decide what my salary, what my price is. so i think that this is flexibility against social rights is the wrong choice. i think we have to find a middle ground between flexibility which is obviously needed on the side of the platform, obviously. but also on the side of a lot of gig workers and social rights because i think that all the gig workers,

they would like to have some protection when they are sick and have some more say when the price of their service and their wage or whatever you call it is established. do you think taxpayers are going to have to pay more if more people work this way? because, they will need more from the state governments, right? because their employer won't be giving them things like sick pay. we cannot have a system where some workers, some employers have to pay taxes, they have to play social contributions and then we have a system where nobody pays social contributions in the general system. so this will create a big division among workers, but also in our whole social protection systems. and tthe end, it will be the community, the state who has to

find the solutions. so i am against all of these kind of ideas about unconditional minimum income and things like that. i think we have just a respect work, we have to pay people fair wages. we have to establish our weather systems. and everybody has to pay his or herfair and everybody has to pay his or herfair share. this applies to workers, but this applies to self—employed and employers, including the platforms. you publish your draft proposal back in december. just briefly, what has been the response from eu members? in general, the response was positive. certainly there was a lot of questions because we are in a new area. the world is changing, there are a lot of questions that have

been put, there are countries that have already put into place some legislation which partly fits with my proposal some do not fit so much. so we are now in the state in the process of having this debate between member states but generally i think there is awareness that we cannotjust leave this new economy, this new business modeljust aside. and not bring them into a framework with some rules. for social reasons but also the competition rules. why should a platform be treated absently differently from a normal business, a normal shop, a normal restaurant. i think there has to be fair competition conditions also in the area. is the era of the standard job is that guns are ever? is the era of the standard job is that gone forever?

i do not believe that it is the end of the standard job. this is a new challenge because we have to help people to navigate into this new kind of work. this new world of work where mobility is requested, where investing in knowledge and skills as requested and where at the same time respond, especially also for younger people to their quest and need of some security. because you have to build your life, not just from one day to another, you have to be able to plan your life, to bring in to your life some security, if you want to have a family you cannotjust have a doubt if you have a salary tomorrow or not. so we need security, we need also mobility and so the world of work will change and we have to bring into this new world of work, the right framework and the right regulation. not over regulating, leaving the possibility to this revolution but at the same time being human centred.

i think this is an extremely important issue to be human centred. the economy is not for its own safety, the economy is also at the end for people links are coming i think this is an extremely important issue to be human—centred. the economy is not for its own safety, the economy is also at the end for people. thanks for coming on the show, i'll talk to you soon. let's talk about one company that is doing particularly well, airtasker. it operates in the likes of australia, the us in the uk. it says that more than 2 million people are using the platform to find someone to do one—off tasks like cleaning to something more complicated like building your website. i have been speaking to its big boss and founder, tim fung. a pleasure to have you on our show. let's start with this because it looks like business is booming, your last set of numbers show a more than 30% jump in volume

and the money that you bring in. i am just wondering if this period of inflation, this cost of living crisis that we are all ensuring at the moment, if that is going to take your numbers even further? absolutely. we have seen with nine point something percent inflation in the uk being reported, brits are looking for more ways than ever to be out and some extra money, to compensate for that rising cost of living. we have seen a 300% increase in tasker sign—ups in the last three months which is really reflective of people looking for the opportunity to build some extra income. how much regulation do you believe this industry needs? i think things like making sure that there are safe working environments, making sure that people get paid in line with the wages are all important considerations, one underlying

thing about airtasker is we are a marketplace. we believe that our users should follow the law just as they would if they were connected by any other form. just because something is done on airtasker doesn't mean you don't have the same responsibilities that you have any other kind of platform or environment. do you see certainly in the near future that regular old fashion ways of employing people, do you see that dying out? no. i think that full—time and permanent employment is absolutely going to be part of the mix. different kinds ofjobs need to have different kinds of structures. what we have found about flexible working absolutely love is the flexibility. the ability to choose when you want to work, who you want to work with and what kind ofjobs you want to do. is there a danger that things people use to get from their employer like sick pay, minimum wages, those sorts of things

will that have to be born by taxpayers, do you think rather than employers? i think all of those problems that have been things like making sure that people save money or making sure that people can be compensated when they are not able to work. they are all problems that exist in both permanent full—time work but also in the flexible labour economy and on the gig economy. so i think those are all problems which we should be aiming to solve over time. certainly at airtasker we have our thinking cap on about how we can solve them. what we don't think is a good idea is to take the same solutions, the same systems that exist in the permanent, full—time environment and just arbitrarily apply them into the flexible labour environment. i don't that that will work well. appreciate your time, thank you forjoining me. not many turkish manufacturers are household names

across a large parts of the world, including the west, but you might be familiar with the goods maker becker as well as fridge freezers and washing machines they will find their name on computers, audio goods and air—conditioning units. but as well as having to cope with covert and supply chains problems in to go greener, they are based on a country where inflation reached close to 80% injuly. to his russian counterpart putin and to his russian counterpart putin and the turkish lira has lost half of its value against the dollar in the last year. so i caught up with the big boss to find out how it is coping with all of these crosswinds? a real pleasure to have you on the show. a real pleasure, let's talk about the supply chain chaos, because you manufacture all sorts of products. and you rely on parts and bits and pieces and made all over the place. how have you coped with this enormous disruption? it has been difficult.

at the beginning of the pandemic we originally reacted by essentially trying to secure a supply base, which was becoming very difficult with all of the closures. and ensuring business continuity. that was the biggest challenge. then we quickly saw the appliances are an industry that will have tailwind and because of everyone spending money on their homes, redoing their kitchens and so on. so, we both had disruption caused by the pandemic and closures, and also the increase in demand. which was very challenging to manage. but i like to think that our diverse footprint, global footprint has really helped us create local ecosystems supply. that has helped us weather the storm better than our competitors. just supply security is not the only issue here, the logistics, the cost, the increase in logistics has been

absolutely incredible. a container that used to cost $2,000 ended up costing $20,000. which makes it prohibited for you to pass on those costs to come humours. ship owners, the shipping lines of really abusive situations by raising the prices exorbitantly. i think this cycle will turn around with demand reducing because of geopolitical tensions, the war. energy inflation, i think we will see a return to normalcy and that will really ease our operations. when do you think we will see manufacturing and distribution stabilising? i would say six to 12 months we will see stabilisation. basically on the back of reduced demand, probably. another crisis that much of the world is facing is the energy crisis, these energy prices are soaring. how is that affecting your business? it is notjust affecting our

manufacturing costs, of course you have to pass these on to consumers. it is impacting the complaint you most�*s disposable income more than anything. it is a double whammy and unfortunately it is going to impact europe more than anywhere else in the world. europe, if this kind of energy inflation continues, it will be pushed into an enduring recession which is not good for anybody. lets talk about the war in ukraine, the turkey's position is complicated. it's a nato member but the president is finding common cause with putin, and your company, you have a fridge and washing machine company in russia? is that still operating? �*s big yellow first of all the conflict is awful. it's causing unimaginable suffering and not only that it actually one of the most direct causes of the recession we are facing in europe. so i believe that this needs to end as soon as possible in any way possible. we believe. turkey has stayed neutral

from the beginning of the war, it has relations with ukraine and russia. 0ur russian operations have continued in a much smaller fashion. we have stopped exporting from russia, we only manufacture in russia for the russian market, which has shrunk dramatically as well. the position we took there is all of our employees over there are no different from our employees in thailand or china and have no part in this conflict and why should they be punished by losing their monthly wages? so we decided against closing the operation and just keeping the operation at a much smaller downsized way. let's talk about the economic problems facing turkey will stop the inflation hit 80%, the lira plunging in value and the president insists on lowering interest rates, when as you know all economic norm say that you raise rates to lower inflation, like we see many banks doing right now. i am just wondering which one of those keeps you awake at night?

these days there are so many reasons to keep you awake at night, how can you fall asleep? you never know what is coming. turkey, it is a double edge sword, of course it is quite sad that we are under this extreme inflation pressure, 80% makes daily life very difficult. disposable income, and wage inflation shrinks the market. the turkish market in terms of units has been shrinking quite dramatically because of this high inflation. 0n the other hand, in turkey we have had high inflation before. periodically, i would say every six or seven years turkey goes through a cycle of crisis. which actually has made companies, like the one i am leading, very resilient to crisis. i am prepared to argue that we have much more experience dealing with inflation that

you see now in the uk and in northern europe, which you haven't seen in 50 years. we know how to deal with it much better, we know how to change our supply chains. supply chain cycles are basically fulfilment cycles, pricing strategies. pricing strategies, and it does make us a little bit protected in this environment. you are known for being forthright about ecological issues, sustainability, and ceos like yourself they face a big challenge. building the company, commercial success, whilst being green and i'm going to quote you here, you said, the race is on, we need to invent materials and processes to avoid being far being far richer people on a far poorer planet. can it be done? that is the real question. i tried to say earlier that sustainability is dear to my heart. can it be done,

i believe absolutely. but it means we need is we need to take action right now. look at germany, they are telling retired people to go to the south of turkey in the winter to save on heating their homes and gas from russia. that is exactly what we need to do. i don't care where the oil comes from, we just need to use less of it to decarbonise the economy. if we can have a sense of urgency around geopolitics, it astonishes me we don't have a sense of urgency and solutions around something that is threatening the very existence of our planets in the future of the people that live on it. we will do everything in our power to decarbonise the company, continue reducing our carbon footprint, we are doing every single day. and actually try to reach these difficult goals that we have set for ourselves. i believe that we can set a good example for those to follow.

do i have hope? the short answer is yes i absolutely have hope. a real pleasure to have the on the show. good luck with everything. that is it that for this week's show, i hope you enjoyed it. don't forget you can keep up with our latest on the bbc website or the smartphone app. you can also follow me on twitter, i'll tweet you back. thanks for watching, i'll see you soon, goodbye. hello there. well, it was a fine bank holiday monday in wales. we had plenty of sunshine and, in porthmadog in the northwest, we had temperatures up to 25 degrees. looking at the weather picture for the rest of the uk this week, there will be a lot of drier weather. it is quite breezy, though, at times in the south, perhaps a bit warmer over the next couple of days, but there's a big change in our weather patterns on the way as we head into the next weekend. high pressure stays to the north of the uk at the moment, and it's that that's driving in these north—to—northeasterly winds, bringing in quite a bit of cloud across scotland and down these eastern coastal areas of england. the cloud thick enough for an occasional light shower, a few mist patches as well over the next two hours,

and temperatures similar to what they've been over recent nights. so, this is how we start off tuesday morning. a bright start across much of england, wales, northern ireland with some sunshine. as we go through the morning, cloud will bubble up and develop and spread across the skies, so certainly towards the early part of the afternoon for quite a few of you, it will turn rather cloudy. and that cloud thick enough to squeeze out an odd light shower — east anglia, south—east england, maybe one or two across wales and northern ireland as well — but the emphasis is on a lot of dry weather. quite breezy around our coasts, and it's those onshore winds that will keep the temperatures a little bit fresher and lower across eastern scotland, eastern areas of england. again, the warmest spots are likely to be across wales and southwest england, where we'll see temperatures, again, pushing on towards the mid—20s. now, for wednesday, again, there could be an odd isolated shower around. for the both of you, though, it's another dry day with some sunshine and temperatures just starting to lift up a little bit across parts of the south. 2a, maybe 25, but still into the high teens across scotland and the far northeast

of england. the weather stays quite quiet, really, through thursday and friday. no great changes in the weather forecast. temperatures in the warmest spots climbing into the mid—20s. however, it's as we head into the weekend that we see a big change in our weather as this area of low pressure moves in. now, it is forecast to become quite slow—moving, and so will probably be around about to the west or southwest of the uk for the first week of september or so, throwing up bands of rain. the heaviest rain is likely to be across probably southern and western areas, but they are some of the places that we've got those water and hosepipe restrictions and problems at the moment. so, of course, we do need this rain to fall, and it's on the way for the weekend.

hello, you're watching bbc news — i'm rich preston. our top stories: a third of the country under water, farmland and homes destroyed — pakistan braces itself for more flooding. awaiting judgement — the man on trial in australia for a murder in the 1980s made famous by a true—crime podcast. a call for calm in iraq as clashes continue between security forces and supporters of the shia cleric muqtada al—sadr.