Measuring digital platform‐mediated workers

• Author: Rory O'Farrell,Pierre Montagnier
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/ntwe.12155
• Date: 01 March 2020
• Published date: 01 March 2020

130 New Technology, Work and Employment © 2019 Brian Towers (BRITOW) and

John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

New Technology, Work and Employment 35:1

ISSN 1468-005X

Measuring digital platform-mediated

workers

Rory O'Farrell and Pierre Montagnier

The role of digital platform workers, whether they are deliv-

ering fastfood or working remotely categorising photographs,

has received much attention both in the media and among pol-

icymakers. However, there is a lack of comparable and consis-

tent statistics, over time and across countries, on the number of

platform workers, their characteristics and their types of jobs

and tasks. This review article examines the attempts that have

been made to measure the number of digital platform workers,

including both traditional surveys and uses ofbig data, and

it highlights the difculties encountered and offers guidance

on future attempts to estimate the number of digital platform

workers.

Keywords: digital platform, platform labour, crowd work,

survey, big data, online labour, gig economy.

Introduction

In September 2019, digital platform workers (platform workers hereafter) once again

appeared in the newspaper headlines as the California state legislature passed a bill to

classify platform workers as employees. However, while it has been easy to nd plat-

form workers in the headlines, estimating the number of platform workers, their char-

acteristics and types of task performed has proven remarkably difcult.

Platform workers (such as workers using Uber, Deliveroo or Amazon Turk) use an

app or a website to match with customers in order to provide a service (rather than

goods) in return for money. They offer a diverse range of services including ride hail-

ing, coding and writing product descriptions. Those who sell goods or rent out capital

(as with Airbnb) via a platform are sometimes also included. Platform work may con-

stitute a primary source of income or provide occasional secondary work as a supple-

ment. The use of an app or website typically forms an integral part of providing the

service, for instance allowing the worker to submit their work (such as product de-

scriptions) through the platform, or allowing users/clients to make payments through

the platform. However, despite the increasing attention being paid to platform work,

there is currently no agreed denition, compounding the problems of measurement.

The emergence of platform work, and the new forms of work associated with this,

has led some to point out potential benets such as boosting employment and increas-

ing exibility for workers, but it has also led to concerns that the exible work

Rory O’Farrell (Rory.OFARRELL@oecd.org) is an economist working at the Organisation for Economic

Co-operation and Development (OECD) specializing in digital economy and labour market policy.

Pierre Montagnier (Pierre.MONTAGNIER@oecd.org) is analyst on the Digital Economy at the OECD.

He works on various issues related to the evolution of usage of information and communication tech-

nologies. He contributed to the recent publications IoT Measurement Applications (2018) and Measur-

ing the Digital Transformation, A Roadmap for the future (2019).