Crowd Work in Europe : Preliminary results from a survey in the UK, Sweden, Germany, Austria and the Netherlands
Year: 2016
Type: report
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: A connected 'Digital Single Market' has been listed under the ten priorities of the current European Commission and has been a main topic of interest in the European policy arena, in particular since the launch of the Digital Single Market Agenda in May 2015.Digitalisation and the connected transition to Industry 4.0 will create a new global division of labour as digitalisation compresses time and space and introduces new requirements for a simultaneous local and global presence.Previous analyses conducted on the future world of work point in the direction of a hyper-mobile labour market, where workers shift between various forms of employment and will at times have multiple, simultaneous workplaces.The first signs of a hyper-mobile labour market are reflected in the recent emergence of 'new forms of work' organised via online platforms.This so-called collaborative economy, which is also known as the 'gig economy', covers various sectors and is rapidly emerging across Europe and beyond.The new phenomenon opens up many opportunities with regard to economic benefits for the European Union (EU) including for instance the creation of new employment structures, an increase in productivity and the improvement of consumers' access to goods and services.Nonetheless, these new forms of work also pose risks to our working culture, threatening to create a second (parallel) labour market with poorer social and fundamental rights leading to a hollowing out of Europe's social model.The present report 'Crowd work in Europe -Preliminary results from a survey in the UK, Sweden, Germany, Austria and the Netherlands' briefly reviews the existing evidence on the extent and characteristics of 'crowd work' in general and presents the results of five surveys in the aforementioned Member States in particular.This joint research project is carried out by the University of Hertfordshire and Ipsos MORI in association with the Foundation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS) and UNI Europa, the European services workers union.In addition, several national funding partners contributed to it, so that the project could leverage on their local knowledge and expertise and ensure a broad dissemination of its main findings.The current report strives to picture the digitalised labour market and the diversity of new forms of labour and associated labour conditions in the EU.Based on the results presented here and in the subsequent final report, our research project intends to conclude with concrete policy proposals on the framing of a legal level playing field for crowd workers.Crowd work in Europe, first draft report to FEPS/UNI-Europa from Hertfordshire Business School Page 1 Table of Contents _Toc463593275 Introduction ...
Authors: Ursula Huws, Neil Spencer, Simon Joyce
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2994423563