Virtual workers and the global labour market (‘Dynamics of virtual work’ series) by Juliet Webster and Keith Randle (eds) (2016), London: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN: 978‐1‐137‐47918‐1, xvii + 279 pp.

• Date: 01 March 2017
• Published date: 01 March 2017
• Author: Gillian Symon
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/ntwe.12084

New Technology, Work and Employment 32:1

ISSN 0268-1072

Book Review

Virtual workers and the global labour market (‘Dynamics of virtual work’ series)

Juliet Webster and Keith Randle (eds) (2016), London: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN:

978-1-137-47918-1, xvii + 279 pp.

This book is one in a series published through the auspices of an international,

interdisciplinary research network investigating The Dynamics of Virtual Work and

funded by the European Union: http://dynamicsofvirtualwork.com/. In this vol-

ume the discussion centres on examining what new forms of work and organising

are emerging given the globalisation of the labour market and the virtualisation

of work. The book is organised in three sections, however, the first section only

consists of one chapter, a very helpful overview and introduction (Webster &

Randle). The other two sections focus on Virtual Occupations, Work Processes and

Preparation for the Virtual Labour Market and The Conditions and Experiences of Virtual

Work. While the boundaries between these two sections seem more permeable

than the demarcation suggests—in line with the chapter discussions of the nature

of virtual work itself—we are treated to an analysis of a variety of different sites

and experiences of virtuality across a range of national contexts:

• We learn about the specific issues facing workers new to the labour market through Müller’s

chapter on young persons’ attraction to ‘cool’ occupational roles that express valued identity

projects despite poor financial rewards and precarity; and through Michailidou & Kostala’s

work concerning young entrepreneurs’ motivations in the creative industry;

• Contributors share with us analyses of new kinds of digitally enabled occupations such as

Holts & Surugui on the rise of on-line poker as an occupation; Kerr on the roles of com-

munity managers in the digital games industry; and Bengtsson on working in Second Life.

Such ‘new’ kinds of occupation exploit individual’s cultural capital (rather than formal

qualifications), involve extensive impression management and new kinds of employment

relationships;

• We also learn how traditional occupations may be changing in the light of digital practices

as Pfeiffer, Wühr & Schütt describe the tacit practices required to make standardisation

workable; Pitts discusses the structural constraints on freelance creative work; and Surugiu

explains the transformation of journalism to ‘digital piecework’ (182);

• We discover the new kinds of work processes and workplace experiences associated with virtu-

ality through Primorac’s chapter on the precarity of creative labour; Sivunen on experiencing

absence in virtual teams; and D’Cruz on the distinctive nature of cyberbullying.

Each author adopts a critical perspective on the nature of work in the digital

era. This type of work is generally presented as involving increased exploitation

rather than emancipation from drudgery. However, it is not digital technologies

that are responsible for these increased levels of exploitation, and across the book

the authors eschew any form of technological determinism. Rather, they argue

that these effects emerge in the context of a neoliberal capitalist agenda that is

simply being continued, or even accelerated, through (more covert) digital means.

As work becomes progressively physically dispersed and distributed across global

value chains, we are warned of the potential deepening of class, gender and

ethnic divides within the virtual workforce (Webster & Randle).

Indeed, the term ‘virtuality’ is not confined to a purely technological interpre-

tation but is also used to encompass experiences of ‘immaterial labour’ and ‘pre-

carity’. Thus, as well as referring to digital communications and their shaping of

62 New Technology, Work and Employment © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd