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. 2021 Jul 28:10.1111/ilr.12229. Online ahead of print. doi: 10.1111/ilr.12229

Networks of trust: accessing informal work online in Indonesia during COVID‐19

Joanna Octavia 1,✉
PMCID: PMC8444847  PMID: 34548684

Abstract

Although studies on digital labour platforms demonstrated how the internet has opened up access to income opportunities in the developing world, an exploration of how informal workers use the internet to access work without an intermediary is missing. Using data from digital ethnography and interviews with workers in Indonesia, this article examines how platform‐based motorcycle taxi drivers and domestic workers accessed work through social media in the time of COVID‐19 when the platforms were not allowed to operate. The evidence suggests that while social media can offer increased opportunities for workers, their success was largely dependent on their social networks and bounded by the algorithms designed by platform owners.

Keywords: Platform economy, gig economy, informal workers, domestic workers, motorcycle taxi drivers, social media, information and communication technologies (ICTs), job search

 

The author gratefully acknowledges the financial support provided by the Chancellor's International Scholarship for her doctoral study at the University of Warwick. She would like to thank the research participants for sharing their stories, and Dr Tzehainesh Teklè and three anonymous reviewers for their feedback and suggestions, which helped to improve this paper.

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

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