France Stratégie Évènements 6 April, 2017 CEPS, Brussels, 13 March, 2017 Le cybertariat Ursula Huws Professor of Labour and Globalisation, University of Hertfordshire u.huws@herts.ac.uk
The current situation A global division of labour (migration of people and migration of jobs) Concentration of capital and growing dominance of MNCs Global spread of ICTs Decline of normative 20 th century post-ww2 model of stable employment Economic crisis New waves of commodification based on (inter alia): biology, art and culture, commercialisation of public services, sociality Restructuring of capital (often using new technologies, eg automation, substitution of goods for services, new forms of work organisation) A proliferation of new terminology
Confusing developments in discourse and the corporate landscape Crowdsourcing Workforce on demand Cloudsourcing Human cloud Sharing economy Digital labour Prosumption Co-creation Digital commons Peer-to-peer networking Playbour Mesh Economy Gig economy Liquid labour Platform capitalism Online talent platform Just-in-time workforce
A convergence of existing trends, now reaching critical mass Use of online platforms for managing work Spread of just in time working (including zero hours contracts) Standardisation and simplification of tasks ( taskification of work processes) Digitisation of tasks Use of data derived from online activities (including customer ratings) for setting targets and performance monitoring Expectation that workers will be available to check messages 24/7 Multilocational working Migration of traditional freelance agencies online Migration of telephone directories online (from yellow pages to google) Evolution of global outsourcing of digital work elaboration of value chains; growing role of intermediaries; centralisation of control combined with decentralisation of responsibility
Some trends related to the growth of the platform economy Impetus for development of new business models in the wake of the financial crisis Rapid expansion of major corporate players (e.g Amazon, Airbnb, Uber, Elance) helped by: Concentration of ownership (e.g. merger of Elance and Odesk) and entry of large global corporations into the market (e.g. Coca Cola, Ford, Google) What began as a telemediated one-to-one introduction of individuals ( sharing economy ) is increasingly involving corporate clients Business models do not remain static, especially when platforms achieve market dominance. The practices of platform companies are increasingly integrated into normal management procedures across other sectors, including: Requirements for workers to pitch for projects or tasks Use of apps for notification of new tasks Use of online platforms for logging work done Use of customer ratings Surveillance Growth of precarious, non-standard contracts New health and safety risks Capitalism-as-usual?
Some recent survey results Participation in the online economy as a source of income NL AT DE SE UK Any crowd work 1 11% 23% Rent to paying guest (eg Airbnb) Sell/resell on own website 10% 13% 11% 16% 1 Sell self-made products (eg Etsy) 10% 10% 20% Resell products on online marketplace (eg Amazon) 13% 2 30% 31% 43% Sell own possessions (eg Ebay) 53% 53% 5 61% 6 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%
People earning a living from crowd work At least weekly 3% 3% 3% At least monthly At least biannual At least annual Any crowd work 6% 11% 11% 1 1 1 23% NL AT DE SE UK Seeking crowd work 1 21% 22% 2 36% 0% 10% 1 20% 2 30% 3 40%
Earnings from crowd work as a proportion of all income 0% 10% 1 20% 2 30% 3 40% 4 Up to 10% 21% 2 31% 32% 40% 10% to 2 11% 1 2 to 50% 50% to 7 7 to 9 All 6% 3% 2% 2% 6% 13% 11% UK SE DE AT NL Don't know 1 20% 22% 2 3 Prefer not to say 6% 10%
Sending or receiving email from home, by country: comparison of frequent crowd workers, occasional crowd workers and non-crowd workers NL DE SE UK 51% Non-crowd workers 2 51% 3 Occasional crowd workers 7 7 7 86% At least weekly crowd workers 8 90% 9 8 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Use of app to notify when work is available, by country: comparison of frequent crowd workers, occasional crowd workers and non-crowd workers NL DE SE UK Non-crowd workers 10% 41% Occasional crowd workers 3 4 5 50% At least weekly crowd workers 71% 70% 7 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%
Use of app or website to log work done, by country: comparison of frequent crowd workers, occasional crowd workers and non-crowd workers NL DE SE UK 13% Non-crowd workers 1 4 Occasional crowd workers 43% 66% 4 70% At least weekly crowd workers 7 76% 7 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%
Further information About the survey: http://www.feps-europe.eu/en/publications/details/463 Some books: