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The sharing economy has had a substantial impact on the labor market and created challenges for companies in traditional industry and businesses. In conducting micro-comparative research on the existing standards that test the employment relationship between Uber and Uber drivers, this study reveals how different traditional labor law dogmas deal with the conundrum brought about by the sharing economy. The test of personal dependence derived from German labor law has been a model for China, Japan, and other civil law countries as the main standard to identify an employee. This test encounters a failure in the context of the sharing economy. Unlike China, the latest court decisions in the jurisdictions of the UK, the EU, and the US tend to increasingly categorize Uber drivers as employees. This study proposes that a new test or standard in labor law should be developed 'bottom-up' through the increasingly consistent development of local court decisions and local regulators' efforts. A category that lies midway between the employee and the semi-employee is proposed for Uber drivers and other workers intermediated by sharing firms. The sharing firms (platforms), rather than individual workers, would have the ability to undertake the social cost and economic burden incurred when they are categorized as employers in labor law. Only these platforms can invoke their technological and organizational power to reasonably allocate such costs and burdens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]