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. 2021 Jul 1:10.1111/ilr.12222. Online ahead of print. doi: 10.1111/ilr.12222

Stripping back the mask: Working conditions on digital labour platforms during the COVID‐19 pandemic

Kelle Howson 1,✉, Funda Ustek Spilda 1, Alessio Bertolini 1, Richard Heeks 2, Fabian Ferrari 1, Srujana Katta 1, Matthew Cole 1, Pablo Aguera Reneses 1, Nancy Salem 1, David Sutcliffe 1, Shelly Steward 1, Mark Graham 1
PMCID: PMC8444801  PMID: 34548681

Abstract

Digital labour platforms have been widely promoted as a solution to the unemployment crisis sparked by the COVID‐19 pandemic. However, the pandemic has also highlighted the harms to gig workers—who are exposed either to income loss, or to infection while carrying out essential work, but excluded from labour protections. We examine the COVID‐19 policies of 191 platforms in 43 countries to understand how the crisis has shifted the conventions of the gig economy. Using a typology of “fair platform work” we report the introduction of some positive worker protections, but also significant shortfalls, including entrenchment of precarious work as platforms leverage the opportunities arising from the crisis.

Keywords: Gig economy, COVID‐19, future of work, digital labour platforms, labour rights, precarious work

 

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This work has been supported by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), commissioned by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ); the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) through the Global Challenges Research Fund (ES/S00081X/1); by the Higher Education Innovation Fund and ESRC Impact Acceleration Account through the University of Oxford's COVID‐19: Economic, Social, Cultural, & Environmental Impacts ‐ Urgent Response Fund; and the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 838081).

This article will be published in a forthcoming Special Issue on “COVID‐19 and the World of Work”.

Contributor Information

Kelle Howson, Email: kelle.howson@oii.ox.ac.uk.

Funda Ustek Spilda, Email: funda.ustek@oii.ox.ac.uk.

Alessio Bertolini, Email: alessio.bertolini@oii.ox.ac.uk.

Richard Heeks, Email: richard.heeks@manchester.ac.uk.

Fabian Ferrari, Email: fabian.ferrari@oii.ox.ac.uk.

Srujana Katta, Email: srujana.katta@oii.ox.ac.uk.

Matthew Cole, Email: matthew.cole@oii.ox.ac.uk.

Pablo Aguera Reneses, Email: pablo.aguerareneses@oii.ox.ac.uk.

Nancy Salem, Email: nancy.salem@oii.ox.ac.uk.

David Sutcliffe, Email: david.sutcliffe@oii.ox.ac.uk.

Shelly Steward, Email: shelly.steward@oii.ox.ac.uk.

Mark Graham, Email: mark.graham@oii.ox.ac.uk.

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