By Daniel Arubayi for the OII’s #DigitalInequality blog series It is another day as a platform driver roaming the streets of Lagos, Nigeria, waiting for a ping on a smartphone device signalling a trip assignment from a platform algorithm (Figure… Continue Reading
In discussions about the locations that make up the key productive nodes of the global digital economy, African workers rarely get a mention. Autonomous vehicles, machine learning systems, next-generation search engines and recommendations systems: how many of these technologies are ‘made… Continue Reading
I’m currently working on a book chapter about our ‘digital labour and gig economy‘ research. The chapter attempts to contextualise plans and projects to expand digital labour schemes by governments, third-sector organisations, and private sector actors. In writing the chapter, I thought it… Continue Reading
I have a new co-authored article out, with two colleagues, based on our fieldwork with gig workers in Africa and Asia. The piece is about collective organisation in the gig economy and argues that as the gig economy grows in importance so… Continue Reading
A response to the UK Government’s consultation on employment classification and control. Wood A.J and Graham M (2018) The government consultation on employment classification and control a response The UK government is currently undertaking a consultation on employment status. One element… Continue Reading
The government’s recognition that good quality work is important is very welcome. Unfortunately, much of the substance of the government’s response focuses on the need for further consultation and additional consideration. But In amongst the delay and indecision, there are some concrete policy announcements which could be important and should be welcomed Continue Reading
Nature just published a published a long article about the ‘three ways that the digital revolution is reshaping workforces around the world.’ Amir Anwar and I were interviewed for it, and the article includes some of our findings from our… Continue Reading
This report is based on a three-year investigation conducted by researchers from the Oxford Internet Institute (OII) at the University of Oxford and the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) at the University of Pretoria. Online gig work is becoming… Continue Reading
As ever more policy-makers, governments and organisations turn to the gig economy and digital labour as an economic development strategy to bring jobs to places that need them, it becomes important to understand better how this might influence the livelihoods… Continue Reading
What do Google, Uber, and Facebook have in common? You might think that the answer is that they are all technology companies. But actually it is that they all pretend to be technology companies. This shared lie amongst platform companies… Continue Reading