For decades, large firms have been outsourcing and offshoring jobs. Work flowed from developed economies to developing ones, where wages were lower and regulations were of a lighter touch. Europeans and North Americans lost jobs, and Asians, South Americans, and… Continue Reading
“While it may seem trivial if, for example, a housewife spends ten minutes filling out an online survey for a dollar, if there are millions such housewives, spending hundreds of thousands of hours filling out surveys for millions of dollars,… Continue Reading
The conference will explore issues such as the degree to which information technology is transforming capitalism and opening up new means of exploitation, whether the traditional regulation of working time, structured around a stable 9-5 5-day week, is being fractured;… Continue Reading
Online labour markets represent a rapidly growing feature of the world of work. Dozens of international online market places exist for the buying and selling of labour. The number of hours worked on oDesk.com (now known as Upwork), a leading… Continue Reading
I’m looking for two great postdocs to join me for at least 3.5 years to study how ICTs are being used to transform the labour market, through online labour marketplaces, ride hailing apps, and similar digital platforms. The purpose of… Continue Reading
I’ve posted online a pre-print version of my upcoming chapter in Space, place and global digital work, edited by Jörg Flecker (Palgrave-Macmillan 2016). The chapter is titled Algorithms That Divide and Unite: Delocalization, Identity, and Collective Action in ‘Microwork’. I… Continue Reading
I recently had the opportunity to give a plenary talk at the Global Conference on Economic Geography. The talk was part of a broader session on digital economies that Matthew Zook and I put together with Rebecca Enonchong, Robin Teigland, and… Continue Reading
We are now hiring a researcher to work with us to investigate low-wage digital work being carried out in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Oxford Internet Institute is a leading centre for research into individual, collective and institutional behaviour on the Internet.… Continue Reading
The ‘Work We Want’ project has just put together a series of short videos about digital labour: encouraging us to think about not just likely futures, but also the futures we want to be bringing into being. Vili Lehdonvirta and I… Continue Reading
With the rise of online work platforms like Odesk, Elance, and Freelancer, a lot of work can, in theory, be done from anywhere on the planet. This has led to a lot of hopes that digital work can be used… Continue Reading
