"相次ぐスポットワークの賃金未払い訴訟　タイミー利用企業も対象に," 26 February 2026

[Unofficial description by Business & Human Rights Centre]

Plaintiffs have continued to win lawsuits over unpaid wages in the spot work sector.

In many spot work apps, it has been standard practices under their terms and conditions to define the formation of an employment contract as the moment a worker scans a QR code installed at the workplace. Based on the reasoning that no employment contract has yet been formed prior to that point, companies have argued that they are under no obligation to pay an allowance for suspension of work if a job is cancelled for the company’s convenience between the time of application and the scheduled start of work. As a result, a persistent problem has been that workers suffer disadvantages such as earning less than expected or suddenly finding their schedules unexpectedly cleared.

The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare has announced a policy to unify the interpretation among companies regarding the timing of the formation of employment contracts. Following this development, Timee, the industry leader, revised its policy to change the timing of contract formation from the moment of QR code being scanned to the completion of the application. It also amended its rules to stipulate that, in cases where a company cancels a job for reasons that do not fall under permissible grounds for termination, the company must pay the scheduled wages and transportation expenses as an allowance for suspension of work.