Even the most recent flagship report of the International Labour Organization on the role of digital labour platforms in transforming the world of work have taken notice of the emerging scenario in India and the United States to understand the global impacts of the outbreak on the digital labour force the platforms, since these two countries have the largest presence in both posting of tasks and projects, ielabour demand, and registered worker’s, ielabour supply, on digital platforms.

It may not be out of place to mention here that after the widespread outbreak of COVID-19, there was a decline in both the demand for work and the supply of labour in March 2020, after which activity picked up gradually from early April. On the demand side, there was a rise between April and May, after which demand declined gradually and then stagnated until October, when it picked up again globally. However, the clients and workers were affected differently across the countries.

In the United States, demand increased in October 2020 across all occupational categories, with the largest increase in tasks related to clerical and data entry and professional services. The labour supply has increased substantially compared to labour demand. There was a steep increase in the number of registered users on these platforms originating from the US in April and May 2020, particularly in software development and technology, and in creative and multimedia services, followed by a small decline during the next few months. The increase observed in these two categories may have been prompted by the expectation of higher demand for such tasks.

The India digital labour platforms, however, did not suffer such decline, but has been on the increase since mid-March 2020 onwards. Most noteworthy is that the increase in demand was 50 per cent higher than at the beginning of 2020. This demand is largely driven by clerical and data entry, professional service, and software development and technology. The increased demand for software development and technology could be due to the need for software solutions that enable a smooth functioning of a remote working environment. The increase in demand for work across other occupations could be attributed to the declining revenue of companies, and it is possible that many firms or clients were considering these platforms as a substitute for on-site work.

Since the digital economy is transforming the world of work, and the Indian workforce have been the one of the greatest beneficiaries, India needs to tread very carefully covering all aspects of the development, otherwise our workers would be badly hit. Over the past decade, the expansion in broadband connectivity and cloud computing, along with innovations in information and communication technologies have enabled economic transactions and the exchange of large amounts of data and information between individuals, business and devices. Data is increasingly a key asset driving the digital economy. Proliferation of digital platforms in several sectors of the economy is related to these transformations. Since March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has led to an increase in remote-working arrangements, further reinforcing the growth and impact of the digital economy. It is in this context, the digital labour platforms have become distinctive part of the digital economy. By connecting businesses and clients to workers, they are transforming labour processes, with major implications for the future of work.

Opportunities provided by the platform are numerous which include almost all walks of life, both for businesses and workers. However, the opportunities are accompanied by many challenges. For workers, these related in particular to regularity of work and income, working conditions, social protection, skill utilization, freedom of association, and the right to collective bargaining. Many of these challenges are quite pronounced for workers in informal and non-standard work arrangements and are increasingly affecting those engages on digital labour platforms, who are relatively fast-growing share of the workforce. The consequences of the pandemic are exposing the risks and inequalities for workers, particularly for those engages on location based platforms.

For traditional businesses, the challenges include unfair competition from platforms, some of which are not subject to conventional taxation and other regulations, including those relating to their workforce. Additional challenges for traditional businesses include the amount of funding required to continuously adapt to digital transformation, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and the inadequate availability of reliable digital infrastructure.

There are also several regulatory gaps with regard to platform governance. These gaps must be bridged for which the government and the social partners should take initiative. It is important not only to derive maximum benefit from the opportunities but also for overcoming the challenges emerging from the rise of digital labour platforms to ensure sustainable enterprise development and decent work for all.

We also must note the fact that the past decade has seen a fivefold increase in the number of digital labour platforms across the world but are concentrated in only a few countries. India with concentration of 8 per cent, is only after the US with 29 per cent. The UK comes third with only 5 per cent platforms. It is at the top with getting 20 per cent of the outsourced work of the value of $26 million. Workers from India are the largest suppliers of global labour with its share rose by about 8 per cent between 2018 and 2020, which is not a surprise given its highly educated English-speaking workforce.

However, given that the digital labour platforms operate across multiple jurisdictions, international policy dialogue and coordination is required. Male domination should end to provide equal opportunity for females, which would need greater support to females in higher education. Working conditions and hours of work should not be exploitative. Digital skill development needs a new push. Since the majority of workers on digital labour platforms do not have social security coverage, we need to devise the same. (IPA Service)