Gig Economy and Digital Workforce Rights

This assignment examines the emerging issues surrounding the rights of workers in the digital 'gig' economy. It requires students to analyze academic articles on topics such as labor flexibility, the rise of contingent work arrangements, and the impact of technology on employment. Students should consider legal frameworks, worker protections, and potential future developments in this rapidly evolving field.

Running head: WORK IN A GLOBAL SOCIETY
Work in a Global Society
Topic: How has the changing nature of work and labour markets impacted on the lives of
workers?
Student’s name:
Name of the university:
Author’s note:

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Work-life balance of employees......................................................................................................2
Technological Change and the Future of Work...............................................................................4
Jobs and Skills for the Future..........................................................................................................5
Socially Responsible Management and Workers Rights.................................................................6
Introduction to gig economy............................................................................................................7
Flexibility in working hours............................................................................................................9
The Globalisation of Labour: The Migrant Experience..................................................................9
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................10
Questionnaire.................................................................................................................................11
Reference List................................................................................................................................14

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Introduction
With the advancement of time, technological changes affect the styles of employment,
productivity and income inequality in the labour markets. This also creates opportunities to
change the nature of works. Nature of work changes with time and division of labour market is
also changing. Occupation, flexibility, dynamism, demographics and the place of working have
been changing. These things continuously impact on employees and the training and needs and
skills are changing. In order to conduct the report, interviews have been conducting for collecting
the primary first-hand data. In order to conduct the interviews, the questionnaire has been made
through preparing 10 questions that are open-ended. Moreover, interviews have been conducted
to the friends and families or group and face-to-face interviews have been conducted The
purpose of data is to highlight the changing nature of work and changes in the labour market that
impact on the lives of workers. The key terms of the report are flexibility of working,
introduction of gig economy, technological changes, work-life balance and job and skills of the
future. This report is partially based on the secondary websites, journal and article sources and
throughout the report; secondary sources will be compared with primary data that have been
collected through interviews. In the following section, the impact of workers on changing nature
of the work and changing characteristics of the labour market will be discussed segregating the
topic.
Work-life balance of employees
Work-life balance is very important for the employees who have been associated with the
labour market. In recent time, most of the employees work with computer system and this kind
of digital stress impact the employees. Work-life balance concept emphasises on ‘work’ that is

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connected to ambition or career of the employees, whereas, life is related to the recreation and
emotional ideas of leisure, family and health (Grint & Woolgar, 2013, p. 45). Many critiques
have evaluated the idea of work-life balance with the concept of happiness and health of the
employees. Those who work with physical strengths must understand the idea of work-life
balance. The imbalance is seen mostly among the age group of 31-40 (21%) and it is mainly seen
among non-Hispanic black working class (Ncbi.nlm.nih.gov, 2017). The workers who are less
educated work hard to earn their livelihood. This work-life balance issue is mostly seen among
the men and they cannot give their quality time to the family. In occupation base statistics, it is
found that legal occupation; people face issues in maintaining work-life balance (26%).
Role of technology plays a vital role. In recent time, most of the organisations are getting
technology friendly and they ask the employees to continue their work even from home. The
employees have to complete the work in their house, in this way, the work-life balance is
suffered and this affects the workers in form of stress and low-birth rates. In the last two decades,
it has been observed that new economy understands that workers and technologies both have full
potential to work maximum hours. These changes occur in cognitive competence, psychological
contract between employer and employees and social interactive process. As stated by Grint and
Case (2015, p. 558), the employees who are engaged in long computer related work or who get
busy over phones tend to be alienated from family life. They suffer from lack of libido, eye-sight
problem and depression. The data taken from interview supported that in not making the balance
between work and life, parents, spouses and children are mostly affected. The person can suffer
from mental illness if he is part of ‘sandwich' generation. The changing aspect of working does
not make any boundary of work and employees have to be ready for 24*7 for the employers. In

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return of this, the employees can enjoy luxury and burnout (emotional and physical exhaustion)
both.
Technological Change and the Future of Work
This era is technology-driven age and of the organisations work taking the help of
technology. The idea of technology occurred in the year 1820. Technology, however, can give
benefits to both employers and employees. Nonetheless, technological influences can bring
negative consequences to work-life balance. Moreover, changing nature of work is awfully
comes from technological influences. In Australia and most of Asia Pacific countries, part-time
work, short-duration job and multiple job holders’ type jobs are not created much (Hatch &
Cunliffe, 2012, p. 32). The reasons behind this may be the technological influences and
technologies create the job opportunities and it also diminishes the same. Technologies give the
opportunities to the employees to work from the desired places; on the contrary, technologies
bind the employees to the employer for 24 hours. As stated by Spencer (2016, p. 11),
technological changes are socially engineered and it makes organisational relationship socially
determined. In addition, technology is just an application of science; it is the relationship of
social, political and cultural applications as a whole. Under the concept of capitalism, the uses of
technologies are getting higher and the concept of skilled workers is getting extinct (Winthrop &
McGivey, 2016, p. 25).
Technology brings the changes in a working pattern within an organisation and most
importantly in the allocation of tasks within an organisation has been changed. In IT based work
platform, it gives the employees variable potential cloud-based application through which
employees can access the organisational ‘work' from anywhere. These changes impact on the

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lives of employees and they have to be active for 24 hours. In group-based works, all the
employees have to be together in order to complete tasks as the tasks are now allocated with the
level of micro-tasks. On the other side, during interviews, one of the interviewees pointed out
that the more the labour markets start using technology more the employees would be unskilled.
As stated by Bellace (2014, p. 442), globalising the product market can provide competitive
pressure to organisations and this can shift to the employees. This pressure can bring health
hazards to the employees who tend to be busy with work using technologies.
Jobs and Skills for the Future
In the future, in written communication, critical thinking, problem-solving and capacity
to think critically will provide scope to work in these fields and technology, science; engineering
and mathematical skills would be the most important. Most importantly, digital skills have
opened up the gateway to employment in the technological field like innovation, security,
information system, security, software development. In this field theoretical knowledge as well
as practical knowledge is necessary to be in the field. One of the aged interviewees shared during
the interview that digital environment brings the revolution in data and information sources that
open up the scopes for the younger generation and they need to focus more on the skilled
enhancement and they can do courses to brush up their knowledge. In the changing environment,
definition of the labour market has changed as strategic skills are necessary for every field
(Compa, 2012, p. 10). In digital field, digital use, digital identity, digital rights, digital safety and
digital safety are some of the fields that the future job seekers can focus to. In management
skills, the technological innovation has changed the definition that the employees need to do to
motivate them to learn the technological skills to quality in their workers. In management skills,
it is needed to build the team building skills, communication, time management, learn to lead,

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decision-making, ethical and value related skills, empathy, creativity and innovation are some of
the management skills that the employees need to focus. In future, in management skills, the
employers will focus leadership skills (80%), communication skills (70%) and problem-solving
skills (67%) in the resume to hire new employees for the organisation.
During the interviews, interviewees made one thing clear that technical and job-specific courses
both are important in the labour market. In the future, production worker, nursing, IT,
management will be the places where a large number of recruitment will be done. As stated by
Standing (2013, p. 36), generic skills of employees which the employees can apply in all fields
are core skills, essential skills, employability skills, competencies and transferable skills of the
employees. During the interviews, most of the respondents mainly focus on the employability
skills of future candidates as employability skills make the employees ready for the employment.
Employability skills are related to the planning and organising, self-management, problem-
solving, team working, learning and technology (Polivka, 2016, p. 6).
Socially Responsible Management and Workers Rights
International labour standards have been set y ILO (International Labour Organisation) and this
governing body follows the tripartite system as it is included government, workers
representatives and employers. These standards can be conventional or they can recommend
some guidelines. As the time is going forward, types of working styles have been changing with
the time and employees have to work on to focus on qualification, generic skills, and personal
attributes in order to shine in the future. Skills are necessary in the future as a large number of
candidates will apply for a single vacant place. In order to meet the gap and enhance the skills,
the employees can focus more on soft skills such as non-technical and job-specific skills. Core

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labour standards are included the elimination of child labour, freedom of association, collective
bargaining, prohibition of forced labour and nondiscrimination in employment system (Davis,
2015, p. 43).
The labour standard advocates the CSR as it suggests market to be socialised, consumers as
socialisers and corporations as responsible for society. Responsible management of each of the
organisations must focus mainly on the voluntary course of conduct that must follow some
specific rules. The responsible management must focus on environment, customers and
employees and these policies can benefit the by increasing brand loyalty. During the interviews,
first-hand data about the labour market have come with the view about poor wages, long-hours,
unpaid overtime, unsafe working conditions and child labour. UN Global Impact is an
organisation that includes voluntary corporate social sustainable initiatives comprising more than
9000 companies all over the world (De Stefano, 2016, p. 76). This Global Compact follows some
basic principles of ensuring, support, respect, eliminate, eradicate, assume and develop the
labour market. In this respect, Reebok's sweatshop issue in China can be brought into the light.
Reebok's sweatshops curbed the principles of labour standards like child labour, working
conditions and wages. Human Right Production solved the issues and solved the issue of China’s
labour laws.
Introduction to gig economy
In the past, evolution of work has been gone through a few phases, like merchant capitalism, the
industrial revolution, feudal society and post-industrial society. In the past, the concept of
‘putting out' system came into existence. In the ‘putting out' system, the employers took the
advantage of surplus labour. Putting out a system of labour combined both countryside and town.

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Then the time of industrial revolution came and the concept of labour had been changed as the
new ideas of greater control of labour, industrial discipline, the discipline of labour and wages
systems came. Of late, the concept of entrepreneurship has come and most of the entrepreneurs
in the past knew how to do business with less funding. As stated by Skinner and Pocock (2014,
p. 70), job-for-life concept defines that one person enters into an employment and until he/she
retires, he/she does the job. Recently, gig economy concept shakes the labour concept and it is a
sandwich idea of informal and formal labour. This employment system is based and facilitated
by IT and the labours are more in independent contracts. This gig economy averts the scalable
workforce and this employment is based on personal outsourcing (Vallas, 2014, p. 71).
However, before the era of internet, it would be very tough to find out the job. Now, with the
blessing of the internet and digital system, an individual can easily find the employers and the
individual can do the work from home. According to Vanden Heuvel and Wooden (2015, p.
270), employment structures of gig economy can be divided into two, ‘crowdwork’ and work on
demand. Gig economy provides the chance to the employees to work on their wishes and it can
meet the consumer demands. Gig economy gives the chances to young students to earn and they
can match the job opportunity also. During the interviews, one of the respondents argued that
most importantly, gig economy provides the opportunity to work the employees in flexible hours
rather than fixed hours; hence the work-life balance can be maintained easily. However, as
opined by (Wooden & Warren, 2014, p. 280), gig economy provides the chance to exploit the
faceless workers and gig workers are not fallen under the insurance. Workers need to carry the
risks of working on the lean season and government faces issue in taxation.

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Flexibility in working hours
ILO showed the fact that 83% of non-agricultural workers are from India and 50% are
from Thailand in the entire Asian region. In China, it is seen that workers have to work for long
and they get the low wages and have to face poor working condition. However, in Taiwan, most
of the workers do not get the chance to have pension provisions. While interviewing, most of the
respondents said that most of the issues, they have been facing the issue of working hours.
Flexible working hours give the chance to employees to spend quality time with family and
pursue their hobbies and creativity. In the labour market, most of the flexible jobs are lower
standards and it does not give better payment and employment security. As pointed out by
Zeytinoglu (2015, p.42), flexibility is two types in employment scenario, demand-driven
flexibility (flexibility by employees) and supply-driven flexibility (flexibility for employees).
Flexibility in work can be categorised as functional, remuneration based, technological based,
temporal based and numerical based. Flexibility in work brings the concept of the rise of part-
time work for the younger generation and contract based work. During the interviews,
respondents brought out some benefits of flexible working hours, such as it increases employees'
morale, reduced absenteeism, commitment to the company and engagement.
The Globalisation of Labour: The Migrant Experience
Migrant people in the world is almost 3% of the world population and in Asian countries
migrants people mostly come into Melbourne, Singapore, London and Sydney. Behind the
reasons behind the crossing borders are war, isolation, unemployment, civil unrest, droughts,
poverty and much more. However, after coming to new places, the migrants need employment to
continue their livelihood. The countries who receive migrants can be benefitted in perspective of
the labour market and this may increase innovation, cultural diversity, increased productivity and

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addressing labour shortage (Zeytinoglu et al. 2014, p. 556). During interviews, interviewees
pointed out those migrants want to assimilate into the local communities and the government
needs to provide them training and skill development classes. When the labour market is
segmented into submarkets, migrants do not get a chance to get selected as they do not have
proper identification and skills to match the job requirement. In interviews, respondents said that
in Singapore, most of the migrants are in the construction industry and in domestic help.
Migrants are facing the issue in recent time about exploitation and not receiving the actual
wages. Migrants face the issues of removing from employment, subcontracting, false payslip and
policy reports, manipulation in documents. In labour market, migrants need to brush up their
skills shortage and they can choose a high-skilled occupation, semi-skilled occupation or low-
skilled occupation.
Conclusion
It has been observed that changing nature of work pattern and changing of labour market
impact on the workforce. In secondary sources, it is clear that workers skills and autonomy can
play the vital role. In the organisational context, the employers are finding the technological
innovation that can make a relationship with employees for 24 hours. This may harm the
employees' work-life balance. Moreover, the rise of gig economy can provide flexible working
hours to the employees. In primary data sources from interviews, it is observed that the
employees' rights are necessary and these help them to have employability rights. The main
limitation of the study is that the report does not show maximum coverage of statistical analysis
of secondary data sources and try to assimilate the data that have been collected from interviews
as well.

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Questionnaire
1. How would you describe the relationship between workers rights and CSR?
‘I think CSR brings a significant dimension to the global economy and it can increase the human
rights, labour standards and labour rights in the workplace by connecting consumer power with
socially responsible business. I could not say this a decade ago, however, today's organisations
are giving importance to the social responsibility as a part of human rights and profits can
trump on the social corner.'
2. Are you aware of the ILO’s standards and employees’ right and does your workplace follow
the same?
‘Yes, my workplace has been following the ILO standards since the beginning an employee's
rights have also been followed. In my workplace, rights related to the freedom of association and
collective bargaining is followed. Compulsory labour and elimination force are followed.
Employees’ rights of elimination of discrimination in the workplace and abolition of child labour
are also followed.’
3. Why do you think skilled migration is necessary for the labour market?
‘In Australia, skilled migrants are very popular and skilled migration helps Australia in labour
market. From my perspectives, unrestricted work rights can meet here with skilled sponsored
workers. Skilled migration provides benefits to the home countries that increase income per
person. Skilled employees can increase living standards.’
4. How is work-life balance necessary for the employees?

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‘I have to work 10 hours a day and I have to work from home also in some days. According to
me, work-life balance is necessary for maintaining and supporting healthy work. Employees
need to maintain a balance between personal and work life that can increase employee loyalty.
In working more hours a day can lead to work-life conflict and severe disease can attack health.’
5. How does digital innovation open up the scope of future employment?
‘I think, enforcing centralisation is tough and doesn't win you many friends. It's hard to innovate
when you've got to go through IT and persuade them of the value of what you're trying to do too.
So some try to bypass the IT department to get what they want. Many companies who are trying
to push innovation or associate their brands with innovative things have latched onto the term
digital.’
6. How does gig economy change the perspective or nature of work?
‘I am a part of gig economy as I like to work from home and flexible working hours. In today's
workforce, people tend to change jobs several times throughout their working lives; the gig
economy can be seen as an evolution of that trend. A gig economy is an environment in which
temporary employment is common and organizations contract with independent workers for
short-term engagements.’
7. What is your opinion regarding technological changes in the labour market?
‘According to me, economic mechanism leads to technological progress and technological
progress can lead to inequality among workers, mainly in labour market. Technological changes
in labour market create a situation of having the threat of losing a job. In another situation,
technological change gives the benefits of work from a remote place using cloud software.'

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8. Is flexibility a win for workers and a win for employers?
‘Flexibility in working hours gives the benefits to the employers to have a better team working
and the employers need not to give a place for working and they can contact the employees at
any time. The employers have a more productive workforce. However, Employees have the
benefits to work on their own schedule and it makes wider talent pool. Employees become
satisfied and happier.'
9. What are the skills an employee needed to possess in order to cope up with changing the
working pattern?
‘According to me, an employee needs to collect a list of tasks and identify the urgent and
important works. In changing work culture assessing the values of employees themselves is more
important. Moreover, the flexible workforce can be adaptable for the employees. Technological
changes are happening every day and employees should know the use of technologies.'
10. How changing nature of work impact on the labour market and workers' health and well-
being?
‘I think the employees need to aware of the changes that are happening right now with analysing
and researching the environmental forces. The content of work needs to be good and nature and
structure of work should follow the changes. Labour market must identify the changing context
that can affect the occupation design.’

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Reference List
Bellace, J. 2014 ’Hoisted on their own petard? Business and human rights’ Journal of Industrial
Relations 56 (3), pp.442-457.
Compa, L. 2012. ‘Corporate Social Responsibility and Workers’ Rights’ Comparative Labor
Law and Policy Journal 30 (1): pp.1-10
Davis, J.G.. 2015 ‘Protecting the rights of the digital workforce in the ‘gig’ economy’, The
Conversation 18 August
De Stefano, V. 2016. The rise of the ‘just-in-time workforce': On-demand work, crowd work and
labour protection in the ‘gig-economy' Geneva: ILO
Grint, K., & Case, P. 2015. The violent rhetoric of re‐engineering: management consultancy on
the offensive. Journal of Management Studies, 35(5), pp. 557-577.
Grint, K., & Woolgar, S. 2013. The machine at work: Technology, work and organization. New
Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.
Hatch, M. J., & Cunliffe, A. L. 2012. Organization theory: modern, symbolic and postmodern
perspectives. Oxford: Oxford university press.
Polivka A.E. 2016. ‘Contingent and alternative work arrangments, defined’, Monthly Labor
Review, 119 (10), p. 3-9
Skinner, N. & Pocock, B. (2014) ‘Flexbility and Work-Life Interference in Australia’, Journal of
Industrial Relations, 53(1), p. 65-82

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Spencer, D 2016. ‘Work in and beyond the Second Machine Age: the politics of production and
digital technologies’, Work Employment and Society, pp.1-11.
Standing, G. 2013. ‘Globalization, Labour Flexibility and Insecurity: The Era of Market
Regulation’, European Journal of Industrial Relations, 3(1), p. 7-37
Vallas, S. P. 2014. ‘Rethinking post‐Fordism: The meaning of workplace flexibility’,
Sociological theory, 17(1), p. 68-101.
Vanden Heuvel, A. & Wooden, M. 2015 ‘Self-Employed contractors in Australia: How Many
and Who Are They?’, Journal of Industrial Relations, 37 (2), p. 263-280
Wegman, D. & McGee, J. (2017). The Role of the Changing Labor Market and the Changing
Nature of Work in Older Workers' Work Experiences and Health Outcomes. [online]
Ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK207705/ [Accessed on
4 Sep. 2017].
Winthrop, R. & McGivney, E. 2016. Skills for a Changing World. The Brooking Institute
Wooden, M. & Warren, D. 2014. ‘Non-standard employment and job satisfaction: evidence from
the HILDA Survey’, Journal of Industrial Relations, 46, p. 275-297
Zeytinoglu, I.U. 2015. ‘Flexible Work arrangements: An Overview of Developments in Canada’,
in I.U. Zeytinogle, Changing Work Relationships in Industrialized Economies, Amsterdam, John
Benjamins Publishing Company, p.41-58
Zeytinoglu, I.U., Cooke, G.B. & Mann, S.L. 2014. ‘Flexibility: Whose choice is it anyway?’
Relations Industrielles/Industrial Relations, pp.555-574.

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