Yandex Taxi: Platform Algorithms Against Drivers

Millions of workers around the world today work in the platform economy. Their work is regulated by digital platforms. Examples of such work are familiar to everyone: food delivery, passenger transport, courier services, freelance workers, and others. Many platforms argue that they are merely intermediaries between clients and independent contractors, but in reality they control the working conditions, pay, and number of working hours.

Belarus is no exception in terms of development of the platform economy. To a large extent, it is dominated by large platforms from Russia. The most obvious example is Yandex. The share of Yandex Taxi (also known as Yandex Go) in the Belarusian market was estimated at 90% in 2024.

One of the common arguments in favor of platforms is that they provide opportunities for quick and flexible side jobs. However, research shows that for many workers this is their main source of income, not short‑term extra work – according to a report by the International Labour Organization.

The problems faced by Yandex drivers reflect global trends seen with other major platforms such as Uber and Bolt. We take a closer look at them.

Form of Employment

Officially, no driver is in an employment relationship with Yandex Taxi. The most common arrangement is working for a Yandex partner taxi fleet under a service contract or an employment contract. What does this mean for the worker?

Without formal employment (an employment contract), a driver lacks labor protection, including paid vacation, sick leave, a minimum wage, protection against dismissal, and occupational safety. In practice, a driver can be dismissed at any time if the service contract is not renewed. For many drivers without their own car, this arrangement also provides the opportunity to work using a taxi fleet’s vehicle.

Signing employment contracts with drivers is something the Belarusian authorities insist on in their attempts to regulate the market and, of course, reduce the possibility of schemes involving tax evasion. The introduction of a mandatory driver registry in 2024 was aimed, among other things, at legalizing employment relations.

However, drivers note that the practice of signing service contracts is still widespread, and the authorities’ approach has not fundamentally changed anything. Even when employment contracts are signed, taxi fleets still circumvent these requirements, for example by stipulating only the minimum wage.

If a person has their own registered sole proprietorship (IP), they can become a Yandex partner themselves and work independently without the mediation of a taxi fleet. However, due to the need to obtain a license and other required documents, as well as owning a car with all the maintenance costs, many choose to work through a taxi fleet instead.

Blocks and Loss of Activity

Despite opaque and unfavorable pricing, drivers are forced to accept any orders. Otherwise, they risk losing their activity status or even being blocked for an indefinite period. Thus, beyond the impossibility of planning their income, taxi drivers are compelled to agree to the platform’s offers, even when they understand them to be disadvantageous.

The constant threat of restrictions from the platform negatively affects not only drivers’ motivation and emotional state but also pushes them toward potentially risky behavior – overwork, lack of rest time, driving while fatigued or ill. Ultimately, this can harm their health and safety.

Competition Among Drivers

Drivers work under conditions of constant competition with each other. The platform’s algorithm is designed so that the number of orders, their price, and therefore the driver’s earnings depend on the level of competition on the line. Yandex further increases competition through other algorithmic tools – for example, driver priority.

Each taxi driver has a priority score that influences order allocation: whoever has a higher score receives the more profitable order first. There are even trips for which drivers are not offered money at all, only additional priority points. This is unacceptable, since the platform maintains a system of constant competition at the expense of the drivers themselves. If a driver refuses such orders, they risk losing their existing priority score.

Rating System

Imagine if at your job you were evaluated every hour. Ratings have undoubtedly become an integral part of the service sector today: we check ratings before buying goods, going to a restaurant, or choosing a hairdresser. However, from the workers’ perspective, such a system lacks individuality, is inflexible, and often subjective.

For taxi drivers this is obvious, since clients rate them after every trip. The subjectivity of such ratings is clear: a client may be dissatisfied with anything, be in a bad mood, or simply want to spoil the rating. At the same time, the client is not obliged to explain a low score, which directly affects the driver’s work.

With a low rating, as with refusing an order, sanctions follow: fewer profitable orders, longer waiting times, lack of access to better tariffs, or even blocking.

It is worth noting that drivers also rate clients, but the sanctions against clients with low ratings are predictably far less serious.

Yandex Service Standards

The platform has strict standards for passenger service. Each tariff has its own, and the driver is obliged to follow them. Beyond the car model, the standards prescribe requirements for vehicle cleanliness and the driver’s appearance.

Of course, concepts like “dress neatly” and “communicate politely and respectfully with passengers” can be interpreted differently and are often subjective.

There are also questions about the practice of secret checks, when a “mystery shopper” evaluates how well the driver adheres to standards.

The Car as a Work Tool

For drivers, the car is their tool of labor. In classic employment relations, the employer is responsible for maintaining and repairing the equipment necessary for the worker to perform their duties.

Platforms like Yandex, which profit from drivers’ labor and effectively use their cars as part of the production process, bear no costs for maintenance: they do not pay for insurance, repairs, or fuel. Refusing to bear such expenses is a way of maximizing profit.

Drivers who contract with a taxi fleet work with its cars. In this case, the driver is forced to give up a significant portion of their income to the fleet. If the driver works as an individual entrepreneur (sole proprietor), then all car expenses fall solely on them.

Division of Responsibility

Thus, Yandex controls the driver’s working conditions from start to finish: price coefficients, supply volume, driver rating, bonuses, service standards, and the severity of sanctions.

Despite this, the platform continues to position itself merely as an intermediary between client and driver. In situations where drivers would need employer support – in disputed blocks, conflicts, or worsening working conditions – the possibility of receiving real help from Yandex is severely limited.

To contact Yandex, there is only a support line, where sometimes one has to wait several days for a chatbot’s reply.

Conclusions

From all of the above, a rather profitable business model emerges. Yandex, with minimal expenses and obligations toward drivers, generates record revenues, which in no way translate into higher wages. On the contrary, drivers who have worked with Yandex for several years admit that they increasingly notice a rise in orders with unjustifiably low pay.

Despite the fact that Yandex Taxi was recognized as a monopoly in the Belarusian taxi market in 2024, this has not fundamentally changed anything. Nor has the situation been altered by the fact that new companies are attempting to enter the taxi market.

Often these are large companies with a significant share in other service markets: Wildberries – an online marketplace, A1 – a mobile operator.

In essence, this reflects the same model as Yandex: a monopolist company grants access to its monopoly in exchange for drivers giving up part of their income and working “by its rules.”

It is worth noting that Yandex, as a monopolist, itself shapes both demand and supply in the taxi market, and therefore the price of a ride – and consequently the driver’s earnings – are controlled by the platform itself.

If Yandex wished to raise or stabilize ride prices with the aim, for example, of improving drivers’ pay, it would not lose out to competition – which, incidentally, was almost destroyed in the passenger transport market after Yandex entered Belarus.

Unjustifiably low prices remain directly linked to the nonstandard form of driver employment, thanks to which passengers can literally order a taxi for just a few Belarusian rubles. A low price means money lost by the driver.

What Is the Government’s Reaction?

As early as 2023, the Belarusian authorities demanded that Yandex place its servers in Belarus. Later, state television even broadcast threats to block the platform if Yandex did not comply with new legislation and combat “illegal drivers.”

In October 2024, the Ministry of Antimonopoly Regulation and Trade (MART) recognized Yandex as a monopolist in the taxi sector.

“For it, all requirements of antimonopoly legislation automatically come into force, including the obligation to establish nondiscriminatory rules of consumer access to its services and to prevent monopolistically high or monopolistically low prices,” the ministry commented.

Although the Belarusian state is trying to take some steps to regulate Yandex’s operations – recognizing it as a monopolist or requiring entry into the carrier registry (until 2024 Yandex Taxi did not even have a legal entity in Belarus) – it does so reluctantly and with unusual caution.

Officials simply understand that Yandex could easily leave Belarus, since this type of business has not involved major local investments – another argument in favor of the idea that platform work differs from standard employment. Yet if Yandex were to leave Belarus, thousands of drivers would be left without what has already become permanent work for many, and small businesses built around the platform (such as taxi fleets) would be left with nothing.

Trade unions in many countries have been campaigning for the rights of platform workers for several years. Not least for this reason, in June 2026 at the International Labour Conference in Geneva, the ILO will for the first time discuss a Convention regulating employment in the platform economy. Its aim will be, above all, to recognize those employed in it as full‑fledged workers, thereby ensuring them decent working conditions.

Even if the Convention is adopted, Belarus is unlikely to be among the countries that ratify it. In its relations with the ILO, the state adheres to a position of ignoring and shifting responsibility. Nevertheless, the example of Yandex clearly shows that the labor market in Belarus is not isolated from global trends and reflects the same problems. Therefore, adopting international standards – or at least showing readiness to follow them – would be a logical solution for regulating this sphere. As, indeed, it would be for solving many other problems in Belarus today.

Yauheni Dzenisenka

Read in rus