Platform work is often presented as a stepping-stone for migrant workers. It may not however feel so benign to them.
Platform work in the European Union has come under increased scrutiny, for its precarious and sometimes exploitative working conditions and limited social-security coverage. With the recent agreement on the platform-work directive, an EU-wide consensus has been reached on a common framework for classifying the employment status of platform workers. But the issue of poor working conditions remains unaddressed.
Despite unquestionable policy progress, we still do not know much about the scale of platform work and the characteristics of workers engaged in it. This has opened the way for the claim that it can act as a stepping-stone for vulnerable workers, such as migrants, to enter the labour market.
Approaching platform work as a solution for the employment integration of migrants raises dilemmas and challenges. Are migrants indeed over-represented, as assumed? If so, what are the mechanisms that guide them towards this type of work and does the platform economy create a more level playing-field, compared with the traditional economy?
Precarious segments
A recent study by the European Trade Union Institute analyses the role of the platform economy in providing employment opportunities for migrant workers. Much has been asserted about the positive role labour platforms could play in this respect, due to relatively low barriers to entry, administrative burdens and requirements for formal recognition of qualifications—platforms could, in other words, provide an easy way to start earning a living after arrival.
Persons without the right to work and those who have recently arrived seem particularly visible in the more precarious segments of the platform economy, such as care and cleaning, ride-hailing and food delivery. Analysis of representative EU data confirms this. Foreign-born people are about 13 per cent more likely to resort to platform work to make a living. This is mainly driven by third-country migrants, arriving from outside the EU. The largest over-representation in platform work is observed for migrants born in north America, Australia, Asia and central and south America.
Among migrants, those who are not otherwise employed are much more likely to engage in platform work. This shows that platform work is more likely to be taken up by migrants in place of, rather than in addition to, offline avenues.
That in turn points to lack of other opportunities. Migrants may face regulatory hurdles, or be at a disadvantage when it comes to social networks in the receiving country, making it more difficult to find work on the regular labour market. Non-EU migrants in particular may experience discrimination too.
While all migrants are more likely to engage in platform work than the native-born population, this is even more so among those with tertiary education: migrants with university degrees are 28 per cent more likely to do so. The proportion of students is also higher among migrant platform workers. This may be because economic migrants apply for student visas, which are easier to obtain, and they can then combine flexible work with education. It may also reflect difficulty in finding jobs at the individual’s level of qualifications.
Serious concerns
The entry of these more vulnerable groups into a segment of generally low-quality jobs poses serious concerns about potential exploitation and longer-term, negative effects on labour-market integration and prospects. While the average earnings of migrant platform workers are not much different from those of platform workers in general, they represent a slightly higher proportion of total annual earnings. Moreover, migrant platform workers are on average ten percentage points more likely to work via multiple platforms at the same time (except where they are engaged in remote professional work).
This suggests that migrants work more intensively through platforms and are more economically dependent on them. Which illustrates the potential risk of platforms trapping migrants in work that is relatively easy to obtain but may offer few chances of further integration and advancement.
Platform work should not though be equated with migrants. The vast majority of the platform workforce is not of (first-generation) migrant origin. This is important for any discussion of regulatory responses: calls for regulation are prone to be dismissed on grounds of the purportedly positive function of platform work as an entry point and stepping-stone for migrants.
In a broader sense, platform workers do not form a homogeneous group in terms of other characteristics either. Although they are slightly younger than average, we find people from all demographics there. What unites them is their relatively precarious situation.
Symptom of problems
Migrants are more likely to work on platforms when they have fewer other options. This is consistent with previous findings showing that the prevalence of digitally mediated work is higher in regions where there are fewer alternatives of better quality in the traditional labour market. Platform work thus appears to be a symptom of labour-market integration problems for migrants who are unable to find suitable (or any) jobs in the traditional economy, in addition to the challenges it poses for sustaining the quality of jobs in traditional labour markets.
A key consideration should therefore be to ensure that platforms do not circumvent existing regulation and do not enable or reproduce conditions for the exploitation of vulnerable migrant workers.
Agnieszka Piasna is senior researcher in economic, employment and social policies at the European Trade Union Institute in Brussels, focused on job quality, labour-market policies and regulation, working time and gender issues. She co-ordinates research in the framework of the ETUI project on contingent and platform work.
Wouter Zwysen is a senior researcher at the European Trade Union Institute, working on labour-market inequality and wages, and ethnic and migrant disadvantage.