GIG ECONOMY AND UBERIZATION OF WORK AS PRELIMINARY STAGES OF TECHNOLOGICAL UNEMPLOYMENT
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.19251/ne/2022.36(12)Keywords:
technological unemployment, gig economy, uberization, labor marketAbstract
In the article, the author uses desk research methods (scientific discourse analysis and secondary data analysis) to argue that the contemporary phenomena of employment changes: gig economy, and uberization can be interpreted as presages and preliminary stages of the forthcoming technological unemployment. The focus is set on the atomization of work, usage of the platforms, automated supervision, control over the process of work assignment and performance, and the linguistic shift in discourse. As a result, it can be assumed that some of the most distinctive features of uberization, understood as an ongoing process in the gig economy can be connected with the specific models of the emergence of technological unemployment – these models are related to automating specific skills, routine activities or the whole occupations.
References
Ashokbharan, N. K. (2019). Robotisation and the Threat of Technological Unemployment: Approaching the Question of Regulation. SSRN Electronic Journal. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3486081
Barns, S. (2020). Platform Urbanism. Negotiating Platform Ecosystems in Connected Cities. Palgrave Macmillan.
Campa, R. (2019). Three scenarios of the future of work: Technological unemployment, compensation, hollowing out. Sociologia y Tecnociencia, 9(2), 140–154. DOI: https://doi.org/10.24197/st.2.2019.140-154
Courtemanche, M. (2014). What is wetware? TechTarget. Retrieved March 22, 2022, from: https://www.techtarget.com/searchdatacenter/definition/Wetware
David, B., Chalon, R., & Yin, C. (2016). Collaborative systems & shared economy (Uberization): Principles & case study. Proceedings - 2016 International Conference on Collaboration Technologies and Systems, CTS 2016, 57–63. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/CTS.2016.27
D’Orlando, F. (2018). Problems, solutions and new problems with the third wave of technological unemployment. CreaM-Working Paper Series, 2. Retrieved March 22, 2022, from: https://ideas.repec.org/p/csn/wpaper/2018-02.html
European Commission. (n.d.). Threats and opportunities from automation and robotisation. Knowledge for policy. Retrieved March 22, 2022, from: https://ec.europa.eu/knowledge4policy/foresight/topic/changing-nature-work/new-technologies-automation-work-developments_en
Fleming, P. (2017). The Human Capital Hoax: Work, Debt and Insecurity in the Era of Uberization. Organization Studies, 38(5), 691–709. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840616686129
Fernandez-Pol, J. E., & Harvie, C. (2020). Understanding the creative economy and the future of employment. Springer Nature. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-1652-8
Fiorelli, F. (2018). Technological unemployment as frictional unemployment: From Luddite to routine-biased technological change. Kybernetes, 47(2), 333–342. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/K-03-2017-0089
Frey, C. B., & Osborne, M. (2013). The Future of Employment: How Susceptible Are Jobs to Computerisation? Oxford University Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology. Retrieved March 22, 2022, from: https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/downloads/academic/The_Future_of_Employment.pdf
Fuller, S. (2019). Technological unemployment as a test of the added value of being human. In Education and Technological Unemployment (pp. 115–128). Springer. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-6225-5_8
Kessler, S. (2018). Gigged. The End of the Job and the Future of Work. St. Martin’s Press.
Keynes, J. M. (1963). Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren. In Essays in Persuasion (pp. 358–373). W. W. Norton & Co.
Lepanjuuri, K., Wishart, R., & Cornick, P. (2018). The characteristics of individuals in the gig economy (Issue February). Retrieved March 22, 2022, from: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/gig-economy-research
Longton, J. (2019). Technological unemployment: the risk of automation in Belgium. Retrieved March 22, 2022, from: https://dial.uclouvain.be/memoire/ucl/fr/object/thesis%3A21796
Nerinckx, S. (2016). The ‘Uberization’ of the labour market: Some thoughts from an employment law perspective on the collaborative economy. ERA Forum, 17(2), 245–265. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12027-016-0439-y
Olsen, T., & Carmel, E. (2013). The process of atomization of business tasks for crowdsourcing. Strategic Outsourcing: An International Journal, 6(3). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/SO-10-2013-0019
Technological unemployment. (n.d.). Oxford Reference. Retrieved March 22, 2022, from: https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803102813279
Radhi, A. A. S. A. (2020). Impact of Technological Growth on Unemployment Development: A Time Series Analysis of Bahrain Economy. IKSP Journal of Business and Economics, 1(1), 24–37.
Ravenelle, A. J. (2019). Hustle and Gig. University of California Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvcwp0kc
Rosenblat, A., & Stark, L. (2016). Algorithmic Labor and Information Asymmetries: A Case Study of Uber’s Drivers. International Journal of Communication, 10, 3758–3784. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2686227
Sorells, B. (2018). Will Robotization Really Cause Technological Unemployment? The Rate and Extent of Potential Job Displacement Caused by Workplace Automation. Psychosociological Issues in Human Resource Management, 6(2), 68. DOI: https://doi.org/10.22381/pihrm6220186
Susskind, R., & Susskind, D. (2016). The Future of the Professions: How Technology Will Transform the Work of Human Experts. Oxford University Press, USA.
Swan, M. (2017). Is Technological Unemployment Real? An Assessment and a Plea for Abundance Economics. In Surviving the Machine Age: Intelligent Technology and the Transformation of Human Work (pp. 19–34). Springer.
Wetware Definition & Meaning. (n.d.). Merriam-Webster. Retrieved March 22, 2022, from: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wetware
Wu, Q., Zhang, H., Li, Z., & Liu, K. (2019). Labor control in the gig economy: Evidence from Uber in China. Journal of Industrial Relations, 61(4), 574–596. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0022185619854472
