Platform companies haven’t overthrown Nordic labor institutions. But they have navigated around them, growing by exploiting the Nordic model’s uneven and conditional protections.

For much of the 2010s, Nordic governments adopted a wait-and-see approach to platform work. Gig companies were framed as technological innovations rather than labor market actors. When regulation came, it often focused on markets rather than labor relations. Only recently have governments begun to address misclassification, proposing legal changes to strengthen the definition of employment. These efforts remain incomplete, contested, and slow — while platforms are already deeply embedded.