Workforce diversity and platform work: implications for OSH risks prevention. (EXPERT ARTICLE)

This study on digital platform work is a follow-up to a recently completed EU-OSHA study providing an “Overview of OSH policies, research and practices in the context of digital platform work, through review of existing data and information, fieldwork research and policy analysis in the European Union”. The evidence collected in that study has shown that specific groups of digital platform workers are particularly vulnerable and at high risk of finding themselves in the poorest quality jobs in the digital platform economy with the highest occupational safety and health risks. This includes workers with a migrant background, workers with low levels of education, as well as other groups. There is, however, also an emerging literature that points to the opportunities of digital platform work, e.g. by lowering barriers to labour market entry or creating opportunities for entrepreneurship, in particular for more vulnerable groups.

The overarching topic covered in the present study is workforce diversity and digital platform work. The primary focus of the research in terms of its target groups of digital platform workers is on migrants. EU-wide surveys on digital platform work have documented that young male migrants represent a large group among such workers, and this appears to hold especially when lower-skilled on-location digital platform work is concerned (e.g. taxi and parcel delivery services). Additional groups, including workers with disabilities or with chronic illnesses, women, are also covered in the study. In terms of the types of digital platform work considered, the study takes a broad scope (lower-skilled and higher-skilled digital platform work; on-location and online digital platform work, platform work where low/medium/high levels of control are exercised by the digital labour platform), building on the definitions and typology developed in recent EU-OSHA work. The work also identifies relevant policies and practices in the area of OSH among migrant workers and other vulnerable groups engaged in digital platform work, with reference to COVID-19.