Digital realities and ‘Gig’ work: Implications, measurement challenges and considerations

LABOUR MARKET INFORMATION COUNCIL
CONSEIL DE L’INFORMATION SUR LE MARCHÉ DU TRAVAIL
Digital realities and ‘Gig’ work:
Implications, measurement
challenges and considerations
Steven Tobin
Executive Director, LMIC
August 2018

We are still making sense of the vast terminologies
Platform economy/gig economy/digital platform/transaction platforms:
1. Local service providers (‘work on demand via apps’) where work
is dispatched through apps (Task Rabbit, Uber, Deliveroo)
2. Online crowd-working platforms (‘crowd work’): work is posted to
the crowd but can be conducted anywhere.
i. Micro-task platforms: Amazon Mechanical Turk, Clickworker
ii. Macro-task platforms: More highly skilled/freelance; workers negotiate prices
3. Lines are often blurred

Debates on “gig” work are not new
Individual flexibility vs vulnerability/precarity
• Positives: Choosing where and when to work is important (e.g. Fuze, 2018,
ILO, 2018)
• Negatives: Income volatility, limited access to social protection, inability to
access training, abuse of work rights (e.g. Common Cents Lab, 2018; CCPA,
2018)
Business innovation and increased demands for new work arrangements
• Positives: New products/services and increased consumer welfare
• Negatives: Indications that longer-run productivity is negatively affected,
capital vs labour share and income inequality

Magnitude of the issue?
• Global: Some estimates put the figure near 100 million (e.g. Smith and Leberstein, 2015;
Codagnone, et al., 2016; Heeks, 2017)
• Vast majority is emerging/developing where already 90% of employment is informal
• United States: Recent Contingent and Alternative Employment Arrangements, 2017
• Alternative work arrangements: 3.8% of total employment (5.9 million workers)
➢ Twice as likely to be under age 25 and work part-time than non-contingent
workers
• Independent contractors, temp agency work, etc.: 6.8% (10.6 million)
➢ 79% of independent contractors preferred their arrangement over a traditional job
➢ 44% percent of on-call workers and 39% of temporary help agency workers
preferred their work arrangement

Checking the temperature in Canada
9.9% 9.5% 9.0% 8.5% 8.3%
15.4% 15.7% 16.1% 15.8% 15.4%
6.4% 6.2% 6.5% 6.7% 6.7%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
2000 2005 2010 2015 2017
Non-standard employment in Canada, by type
Self-employed (unincorporated) Part-time: temporary and permanent Full-time temporary

Is there a gender component?
11%
9% 11%
3%
10%
2%
9%
1%
9%
1%
8%
24%
9% 23% 9%
24% 10%
23% 9%
22%
7%
6%
7%
6%
7%
6%
8%
6%
7%
6%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Women
2000 2005 2010 2015 2017
Non-standard employment in Canada, by gender and type
Self-employed (unincorporated) Part-time: temporary and permanent Full-time temporary

Trends by age?
38% 39% 40% 39%
29%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
15-34 55-64 15-34 55-64 15-34 55-64 15-34 55-64 15-34 55-64
2000 2005 2010 2015 2017

Trends by age?
38%
34%
39%
33%
40%
31%
39%
29%
29%
27%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
15-34 55-64 15-34 55-64 15-34 55-64 15-34 55-64 15-34 55-64
2000 2005 2010 2015 2017

Within NSE are there more multiple job holders?
7.7%
8.5%
7.9%
8.4% 8.6%
2%
3%
4%
5%
6%
7%
8%
9%
2000 2005 2010 2015 2017
Multiple job holders as a per cent of NSE

What to do?
Labour market information
1. Let’s proceed with caution in defining “gig workers” within surveys
➢ May take too long to agree upon, would be difficult to understand and at
least in LFS there is limited real estate
2. Rather: Capture a broader term for new forms of employment (something we
do not do well) and improve collection on conditions of “work” now
➢ Ask questions to individuals: a) voluntary or not, and b) if so, why?
(traditional questions in EULFS)
3. Seek to understand/contextualize the business case
4. Deeper dive on these issues in a more systematic way

Statistics Canada: future supplements to LFS
Non-standard employment supply
• Main reason for NSE (e.g. couldn’t find regular work, need money,
etc.)
• Specific questions related to older workers
Gig-work supplement
• Incidence of workers related to (i) in-person tasks and (ii) crowd
work
• Main job or additional job for pay?

What to do and not do
Institutional
1. Promoting full-time permanent is not the solution
2. Legal definitions: distinctions are needed between employee and
independent contractor
3. Adapt social protection systems: Easier said than done (but it has been
done) and likely easier than a new system
4. Are there innovative ways to encourage access to training? (concerns
about placing burden on individual)
5. Effective employment regulations: Deregulation in an effort to promote
job growth is having/has had unintended and counter-productive
consequences

Summary
1. Little indication that gig work in Canada has grown in recent years – as
evidenced by trends in NSE
➢ Composition effect within NSE?
➢ Gender gap in NSE persists but it is declining
➢ LFS supplement will allow us to take the temperature on gig work
2. More systematically: greater efforts are needed to explore reasons why
individuals are in NSE, including gig work
3. Promoting full-time, permanent employment is not the solution, but social
protection/training systems need to evolve to mitigate downside risks of all
NSE, not just gig work.
➢ Role of governments, employers and individuals is central question

Digital realities and ‘Gig’ work: Implications, measurement challenges and considerations

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