News - 23 September 2019 12:30

Potential of platform work may depend on greater protection of workers

(Dublin, Ireland): The rise of platform work across the European Union can facilitate better access to the labour market for disadvantaged groups, encourage participation among those with other responsibilities and foster self-employment and entrepreneurship. However, there are growing concerns relating to platform workers’ social protection, working time and health and safety standards, with the work itself often characterised by low income, low-skilled work, and individual small-scale tasks. Eurofound’s new policy brief highlights the main opportunities and challenges of specific types of platform work and illustrates some of the first attempts at addressing them in the EU.

Platform work - the matching of supply and demand of paid labour through online platforms - emerged on the European labour market about a decade ago. While still small in scale, it is growing and evolving into a variety of forms, as a result of an increasing heterogeneity within platform work. Platform work can be a good source of (additional) income. In some forms of platform work – such as location-based platform work – remuneration compares favourably to the traditional economy. It also has the potential to legalise undeclared work as the data collection associated with online platforms can make work more transparent.

Different types of platform work also have significantly different implications for the employment and working conditions of affiliated workers with the most discussed employment-related topic regarding platform work focused on the potential misclassification of platform workers as self-employed. This discussion should reflect the nuance of what is a broad categorisation of modern work. Some types of platform work resemble a market-based business model, with considerable autonomy of the worker who often uses it as a strategic tool to foster their self-employment. But other types of platform work apply a business model that resembles more a hierarchy, that is not only matching supply of and demand for paid work but also managing it. In that case there is a higher potential of workers being misclassified if they are considered self-employed.

The employment status of platform workers is important as it is decisive for their rights and entitlements, including social protection and representation. On the assumption that platform work will further grow, and a higher share of workers are doing it as a main job in the future, solutions need to be found to ensure fair treatment and protection of platform workers.

The low-skilled, small tasks mediated through platforms have good potential to contribute to labour market integration and legalising undeclared work. However, potential side effects like this resulting in labour market segmentation or deskilling need to be explored before platform work can be strategically used as a labour market tool.

More information

Download the policy brief ‘Platform work - Maximising the potential while safeguarding standards?’
Peruse our landing page ‘The digital age - opportunities and challenges for work and employment’ for a contextualisation of Eurofound’s work in relation to the development at EU level

Additional resources

Eurofound’s ‘Platform Economy Repository’ gathers relevant information published across Europe on the platform economy and platform work in an accessible and user-friendly way and lists examples of interventions taken to tackle the emerging issues
Watch the webinar on ‘Making the platform economy work well for workers and gain insights’, and learn from our online poll results and take-aways following the discussions between experts and practitioners from Eurofound, the Belgian Ministry of Health and Social Affairs, the Danish Trade Union 3F, and Frizbiz, a French platform mediating household services. The seminar was moderated by Simon Kuper from the Financial Times.
Download 'Literature review - Online moderately skilled click-work: Employment and working conditions' and working paper 'On-location client-determined moderately skilled platform work: Employment and working conditions'
Download our report on ‘Employment and working conditions of selected types of platform work’
Subscribe to our newsletter about the platform economy in Europe

Topics

James Higgins

Press contact Communication Officer jhi@eurofound.europa.eu +353-1-204-3100

Måns Mårtensson

Press contact Media & Promotion Manager Media relations, marketing and promotion mma@eurofound.europa.eu +353-1-204 3124

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