Abstract
To what extent does the accelerated development of the digital economy contribute to the political process of deconstruction of employment and reformulation of the category of ‘worker’? This paper considers some recent innovations in the digitalisation of the economy, which are intertwined with new forms of work and employment: Internet-based virtual work, on-demand work through online platforms, crowd working, and ‘prosumer’ work. Several dimensions of the employment relationship are called into question by these trends: concept of workplace (and its aspects related to working conditions); formation of wages; meaning and measurement of working time; blurring of reporting lines; representation of workers’ interests; and more generally the meaning of work and solidarity.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Blomsel, O. 2007. Gratuit! Du déploiement de l’économie numérique. Collection Folio actuel. Paris: Gallimard.
Brynjolfsson, E., and A. McAfee. 2015. Le deuxième âge de la machine. Travail et prospérité à l’heure de la révolution technologique. Paris: Odile Jacob.
Cardon D., and A. Casilli. 2015. Qu’est-ce que le digital labor? Paris: INA éditions.
Coriat, B., ed. 2015. Le retour des communs. La crise de l’idéologie propriétaire. Paris: Les Liens qui libèrent.
Degryse, C. 2016. “Les impacts sociaux de la digitalisation de l’économie.” ETUI Working Paper 2016.02, European Trade Union Institute, Brussels.
De Stefano, V. 2016. The Rise of the “Just-in-Time” Workforce: On-Demand Work, Crowd Work and Labour Protection in the Gig-Economy. ILO Conditions of Work and Employment Series 7. Geneva: International Labour Office.
Drahokoupil, J., and B. Fabo. 2016. “The Platform Economy and the Disruption of the Employment Relationship.” ETUI Policy Brief N°5/2016, Brussels.
EU-OSHA. 2015. A Review on the Future of Work. Online Labour Exchanges or Crowdsourcing: Implications for Occupational Safety and Health. Discussion Paper of the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work, Bilbao.
Eurofound. 2015. [Mandl Irene et al.] New Forms of Employment. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the EU.
Flecker, J. 2007. “Network Economy or Just a New Breed of Multinationals?” Work Organisation, Labour & Globalisation 1 (2): 36–51.
France Stratégie. 2016. Nouvelles formes du travail et de la protection des actifs. Documents Stratégie 2017–2027.
Green, A., M. de Hoyos, S.-A. Barnes, B. Baldauf, and H. Behle. 2013. CrowdEmploy: Crowdsourcing Case Studies. An Empirical Investigation into the Impact of Crowdsourcing on Employability. European Commission Joint Research Centre. Institute for Prospective Technological Studies. JRC Technical Reports EUR 26351. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union.
Holtgrewe, U. 2014. “New ‘New Technologies’: The Future and the Present of Work in Information and Communication Technology.”New Technology, Work and Employment 29 (1): 9–24.
Huws, U., ed. 2007. “Defragmenting: Towards a Critical Understanding of the New Global Division of Labour.” Work Organisation, Labour & Globalisation 1 (2): 1–4.
Huws, U. 2013. “Working Online, Living Offline: Labour in the Internet Age.” Work Organisation, Labour and Globalisation 7 (1): 1–11.
Huws, U., S. Dahlman, J. Flecker, U. Holtgrewe, A. Schönauer, M. Ramioul, and K. Geurts. 2009. Value Chain Restructuring in Europe in a Global Economy. WORKS Report, HIVA, Leuven.
Jolly C., and Prouet E., eds. 2016. L’avenir du travail: quelles redéfinitions de l’emploi, des statuts et des protections? France Stratégie. Document de travail 2016-04.
Joyce, S., and U. Huws 2016. Crowd Working Survey: The Size of the UK’s Gig Economy Revealed for the First Time. University of Hertfordshire, FEPS and UNI-Europa, February.
Mettling, B., dir. 2015. Transformation numérique et vie au travail. Rapport pour la Ministre Myriam El Khomri. Paris: La Documentation Française.
OECD. 2016. Automation and Independent Work in a Digital Economy. Policy Brief on the Future of Work. Paris: OECD Publishing.
Popma J. 2013. “The Janus Face of ‘New Ways of Work’—Rise, Risks and Regulation of Nomadic Work.” ETUI Working Paper 2013.07.
Prassl, J., and M. Risak. 2016. “Uber, TaskRabbit & Co: Platforms as Employers? Rethinking the Legal Analysis of Crowdwork.” Comparative Labour Law and Policy Journal 37 (3): 619–651.
Salehi, N., L. Irani, and M. S. Bernstein 2015. “We Are Dynamo: Overcoming Stalling and Friction in Collective Action for Crowd Workers.” Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 2015.
Scholtz, T., ed. 2012. Digital Labor: The Internet as a Playground and Factory. New York: Routledge.
Valenduc, G., and P. Vendramin. 2016. “Work in the Digital Economy: Sorting the Old from the New.” Working Paper 2006.03, ETUI, Brussels.
Vendramin, P., and G. Valenduc. 2016. Le travail virtuel. Rapport pour la CSC dans le cadre du mécénat de la Banque nationale, Bruxelles.
Wauthy, X. 2008. “Concurrence et régulation sur les marchés de plateforme: une introduction.” Reflets et perspectives de la vie économique XLVII (1): 39–54.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Valenduc, G. (2019). New Forms of Work and Employment in the Digital Economy. In: Serrano-Pascual, A., Jepsen, M. (eds) The Deconstruction of Employment as a Political Question. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93617-8_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93617-8_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-93616-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-93617-8
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)