Condições de trabalho na economia de plataformas. Novas evidências do "2021 ETUI Internet and platform Work Survey"
Platform economy generates huge turnover, low income, and no new employment
According to the new ETUI Internet and Platform Work Survey carried out by Ipsos in 14 European Union members states (Austria, Bulgaria, Czechia, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Spain): in 2021 almost 50 million Europeans used the Internet as a source of income. Nevertheless, results demonstrate that such activities deliver only low income to workers with a huge turnover and short-hours jobs.
"This cross-national survey collected information in 14 EU countries, covering 84% of the EU27 working age population. We used representative population samples which means that we can get insights into the extent that people in the EU use internet and digital labour platforms as a source of income. This is the most updated and detailed analysis currently available showing who carries out such activities, how much they earn and what hours they work”
“Results show that digital labour markets in the EU are considerable in size and that digital labour platforms represent only a small fraction of this market, suggesting a large potential for their future expansion. More importantly, however, we find that income in this type of work is very low and it would position a worker who relied exclusively on them below the poverty line. Even platform work performed on a weekly basis is usually only a side job providing supplementary income and only in about one-half of such cases is it performed for more than 20 hours per week.’’
“Our findings do not support optimistic expectations that the platform economy could offer solutions to people who do not have or are unable to get jobs in the traditional economy. It is mostly workers with precarious offline jobs who engage in online labour markets, and they do not stay there very long.” said the three co-authors of the study ETUI Senior researchers, Agnieszka Piasna, Wouter Zwysen and Jan Drahokoupil.
SELECTED KEY FINDINGS:
SIZE OF THE ONLINE WORKFORCE – In the EU in 2021, there were about 47.5 million (17% of the working age population) internet workers, that is people who provided digitally-mediated services through online platforms, apps or websites on a freelance basis, sold products online (apart from second hand belongings) or rented accommodation online. The amount of actual platform workers lies substantially lower, with 12 million (4,3% of working age adults) having worked through a digital labour platform in the past year, and 3 million (1.1%) of more intense users for whom platform work represents a significant part of their working lives.
HUGE TURNOVER – This new survey shows the huge potential of digital tools for labour intermediation as well as for e-commerce and online renting. Despite this wide reach, most people who used platforms do so only sporadically, and move in and out of this labour rather quickly. Thus, among the respondents in 14 EU countries, if almost 30% declared having ever tried to earn money by finding work or connecting with clients through online platforms, apps or websites, 12.4% had already stopped at least a year before the survey.
SIMILARITY ACROSS COUNTRIES - Survey shows internet and platform work to be relatively similar across the analysed countries. There is no clear geographical pattern with central and eastern European countries displaying both the highest (Slovakia and Poland) and the lowest incidences of internet and platform work. (Romania, Hungary).
LOW INCOME IN GENERAL – For the vast majority of workers (85%), platform works provides less than half of their annual income, and often much less. In detail, a platform worker earns a mean of 250 euro per month. Only a small group of platform workers rely almost completely on their platform work for their earnings: 7.5% of remote professional workers, 7% of on-location workers and 11% of drivers.
WORKING HOURS – Internet and platform work is generally an addition to offline work, and does not appear to substitute for it. The average platform worker works online around 10 hours per week. There is no real difference in hours worked online between employed respondents or those not working. Earnings per hour for platform work lie between 15 euros at the top end for remote professional work, and slightly over 8 euros per hour for delivery work.
TYPE OF JOBS – The most popular online activities that people do are some form of remote clickwork. Close to 10 million people across the EU (3.4% of the working age population) do it on a monthly basis, followed by 5.6 million (2%) who are selling items and 5.2 million (1.9%) who are doing remote professional work. Somewhat surprisingly, given the amount of media attention it receives, the smallest internet activity is transport, carried out by 1.5 million people on a monthly basis (0.5 per cent of the working age population).
LABOUR MARKET STATUS – Self-employed are more likely to do platform work, in contrast to employees with an open-ended contract who engage in online work less often. The unemployed and the inactive – whether due to care responsibilities or otherwise – are not more likely to do any type of internet work than those in employment. This indicates that there is not a large proportion of non-working people earning extra money through apps or digital platforms.
SKILLS MATCH BETWEEN ONLINE AND OFFLINE WORK – Platform and internet work is carried out by a large variation of workers, with generally little match between the offline job and online work. Almost all platform workers, regardless of their type of work, are more likely to be relatively highly-skilled and carry out widely different occupations. Two exceptions are transport workers and remote professional workers – where we see more of an extension of the offline work into the online labour market.
--> Watch the video presentation of the survey
--> Read the results (analysis + country tables) of the survey
BACKGROUND ON THE SURVEY
- The survey was carried out between 5 March and 9 May 2021 via computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) with fieldwork in all countries harmonised and coordinated by Ipsos.
- The survey was addressed to a representative sample of adults (aged 18-65) residing in the country of interview.
- The target number of interviews per country was 1750 with final sample size ranging from 1476 in Slovakia to 1760 in Austria. This report is based on a total of 24108 respondents from 14 EU countries
The platform economy in Europe
Results from the second ETUI Internet and Platform Work Survey (IPWS)
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