Working for nothing in the platform economy – Thematic Publication
December 9, 2021
The advent of digital labour platforms – and its acceleration during the pandemic -require researchers, civil society organizations, and policymakers to question the impact of this new mode of labour on workers’ livelihoods and the quality of their jobs.
SOLIDAR, in collaboration with the Employment Relations and Labour Markets Research Group (ERLM) at the Centre for Sociological Research (KU Leuven), presents a study titled “Working for nothing in the platform economy: Forms and institutional contexts of unpaid labour”, co-authored by Valeria Pulignano and Claudia Marà.
This paper aims to offer an in-depth account on the forms and conditions of unpaid labour in the platform economy, as these represent a crucial element in the way that working lives are precarious under platform labour regimes. The researchers delve into three major economic sectors where platforms are thriving – food delivery, care and domestic services, and freelancing professional services; and five European countries – France, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Poland.
