The report places the policy debate on platform work within the context of economic and social trends relating to flexibility and security.

The main outcomes of the report are the following: 

- Platform work provides valuable services for consumers, especially those in underserved areas and communities, and is an important economic enabler;

- Platform work provides an option to workers left out of the traditional labour market as well as offering opportunities for individuals to get income when other supports are not readily available;

- Platform work exists within the broader labour market and is a function of the opportunities and challenges represented by local and national market conditions.

- Platform work is diverse and heterogeneous. At a high level, it is important to distinguish between online web-based work platforms and location-based platforms amongst a whole range of other categories:

Despite the complexity of sizing the platform work market and the challenge in comparing platform work with traditional sources of work, it is now widely accepted that platform work is a modest but enduring feature of labour markets;

-      An overwhelming number of workers engaged in platform work value its flexibility (to set and adjust their work) and autonomy and report great satisfaction;

-      Platform work may promote and contribute to the successful transition of individuals from the informal to the formal economy;

-      Some types of platform work have seen significant social and policy innovation. At the national and sub-national levels, in and outside of traditional tripartite social dialogue, solutions are being developed to enhance positive impacts deriving from the rise of platform work.

This report concludes with recommendations to ensure that this way of doing business and organising work contributes to the delivery of UN Sustainable Development Goals: Decent Work and Economic Growth, Reducing economic inequalities, Promoting employment for women and Igniting innovative business models.

WEC President Bettina Schaller and IOE President Michele Parmelee, introduced the report stressing that “Tripartite and bipartite social dialogue on all levels will need to acknowledge and integrate the diversity of platforms and platform workers and incorporate their variety of needs and traits into similarly diverse frameworks on the national level. This report seeks to place this debate in context. It identifies platform work as a modest but enduring feature of the labour market and a valuable source of income for those sometimes left out of and left behind by the traditional labour market. It also finds that promising developments and social innovation in the public and private sector are helping to shape outcomes”.

We addressed the topic of platform work in several issues of the newsletter.

You can find here a report on recent research on platform-based care workers in Thailand, where the proposal of the European Parliament and here a dedicated edition of last November.