Platform Employment — the Scale and Evidence of Instability

The relevance of the study of platform employment is determined by the fact that under the influence of digitalization, demographic and other challenges over the past decade, its scale has radically increased in the world. The emergence of digital labour platforms has become one of the important tools of the new organization and structuring of the labour market. The article reveals the scale of platform employment, statistically confirmed signs of its instability, as well as its positive and negative effects on workers, employers, and the economy as a whole. Measures are proposed to enhance its positive and prevent negative effects. The subject of the article is the socio-economic aspects of employment through online platforms. Platforms are digital (virtual) technological devices-software, algorithms, control systems using artificial intelligence and other digital means of labour. These new tools allow legal entities and/or individuals to join the unlimited and unknown circle of other individuals or legal entities (so-called crowd workers) for the production of goods and the provision of specialized services on a paid basis. The purpose of the article is to study the extent of the spread of platform employment, the mechanisms of its economic power over customers, to identify the benefits and risks of platform employment, as well as tools for using the former and limiting the latter. We used general scientific methods (system analysis, comparison, description, generalization, systematization, formalization), special methods (source analysis, SWOT analysis, expert assessment method, statistical methods), institutional approach and other methods of scientific research.

1. De Stefano V. The rise of the “just-in-time workforce”: On-demand work, crowdwork and labour protection in the “gig-economy”. Conditions of Work and Employment Series No. 71. Geneva, ILO; 2016.

2. Schwellnus C., Geva A., Pak Mathilde, Veiel Rafael. Gig economy platforms: boon or bane? Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Economics Department Working Papers. No. 1550. 15 May 2019.

3. Degryse C. Digitalisation of the Economy and its Impact on Labour Markets. ETUI Research Paper, Working Paper. No. 2016/02. 2016.

4. Richeri M. Value of work in the context of the digital economy. In: Employment instability: international and Russian contexts of the future of the labor sphere. Monograph. V. N. Bobkov, ed. Saint Petersburg: Railprint; 2017. (In Russ.).

5. Geliskhanov I. Z., Yudina T. N., Babkin A. V. Digital platforms in the economy: essence, models, development trends. Scientific and technical Bulletin of SpbGPU. Economics. 2018;11(6):22–36. (In Russ.). DOI: 10.18721/JE.11602

6. Lapidus L. V., Polyakova Yu. M. Gig economics as a new socio-economic model: development of freelancing and crowdsourcing. Vestnik Instituta ekonomiki Rossiiskoi akademii nauk. 2018;(6):73–89. (In Russ.).

7. Wallenstein Ju., de Chalendar A., Reeves M., Bailey A. The New Freelancers: Tapping Talent in the Gig Economy. BCG Henderson Institute, 2019.

8. Unstable employment in the Russian Federation: theory and methodology of identification, assessment and vector of reduction. Monograph. V. N. Bobkov, ed. Moscow: KNORUS; 2018. (In Russ.).