2024 ACJC GP Prelim P2 Insert

This document consists of 4 printed pages. GP 8881_2 ACJC 2024 Anglo-Chinese Junior College General Paper Department [Turn over ANGLO-CHINESE JUNIOR COLLEGE JC2 PRELIMINARY EXAMINATION 2024 GENERAL PAPER Paper 2 INSERT 8881/02 August 2024 1 hour 30 minutes READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS FIRST This Insert contains the passages for comprehension.

2 Passage 1. An author suggests that the gig economy exploits workers and consumers. 1 Across Britain, gig work —part of a casualised, precarious and on -call jobs market —is growing at a giddy rate. The sector has more than doubled in size since 2016 and now accounts for 4.7 million workers. In part , this is due to new technology: people are using apps on their mobile phones to sell their labour. The core business model relies on near - instant recourse to a large pool of on-demand workers looking for their next gig. Uncertain work is becoming the norm, with the result that unemployment statistics look better than the way Britons feel. It is an environment of overwork, marked by intense bursts of exhaustion. One gig-economy firm even tried to market burnout as a lifestyle by clai ming its workers were ‘doers’ for whom ‘sleep deprivation is (their) drug of choice’. Nothing can disguise the fact that the gig economy’s rise has been accompanied by a fall in the fortunes of working households. In a seminal paper, researchers at Oxford University found that half of the gig work in the UK is in our streets, supplying food or couriering parcels or offering taxi rides. 5 10 2 Consumer rights are also being rewritten, often to the customer’s detriment. People using popular takeaway apps such as Uber Eats and Deliveroo can order from thousands of restaurants without being aware of their poor hygiene ratings. Such practices undermine the trust needed for the market economy to function smoothly. Hidden beneath the claims of autonomy is the fact that the platforms exercise firm control over most aspects of how, and to what standard, work is done. The technology can monitor whether a freelancer is working for the whole time billed. It can detect whether a gig- economy driver brakes too hard. Too many low rankings might see a worker kicked off a platform. Productivity becomes the way to measure human value. Firms can cherry -pick workers, usually those without children or in good health. What happens to those who have lives that do not match the gig economy’s demands? 15 20 3 In the gig economy, employees are no longer protected by a legal system that was designed for a different age. Gig-economy firms assume gig workers to be self-employed contractors rather than their employees who are entitled to employment benefits and have the right to unionise and bargain collectively for better terms and conditions. Britain does have labour laws, but they are not fully applied. This allows gig firms to fi