From Crowd to Cloud: The Present and Future of Work in the Network

Economy – the role of Online Work Exchanges

James Stewart

University of Edinburgh

j.k.stewart@ed.ac.uk

Virtual Work, Bucharest March 2014

This work was funded by and conducted at the JRC-IPTS, European Commission

ICT4EMPL "The Future of Work"

This presentation does not represent the views of the European Commission

My concern from policy?

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Online work exchanges:

New ways of finding work,finding workers, being employed and getting work done

Not: ‘Telework’, ‘free labour’ etc

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Potential Policy Opportunties

Employment-related policy (such as labour market reform, temporary work, youth employment and training, entrepreneurship, self- employment, flexible working, access to work), •Balance of industry and welfare (e.g.flexicurity)

Skills policyDigital skills and access, •Mobility programmes

Enterprise and Markets SMEs and microenterprises, microfinance•Regional Development,•Financial regulation, •The Single Market in services and employment.•Job Creation

Social Policy•Social inclusion programmes•Social cohesion programmes•Public service delivery

International development

10+ years on

Bates and Huws 2002 'eworker' estimates for 2000 in Europe (EMERGENCE Project)

•9 million eWorkers • 3.7m multi-locational eWorkers• 810,000 teleworkers • 1.45m eLancers • 3m+ eEnabled self employed

• Most not working through online exchanges

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STS Agendas

Software Infrastructures Scale –> Big Data

Humans and computers ever more tightly entangled

Algorithmic matching

• Google search, adwords, social media (Facebook etc)

Social computing and classification

ICT and Work

• Replacement of People by IT•‘End of Work’

•Telework•CSCW•Mobile Work•Open Source and voluntary labour

•Call centres•Globalisation, BPO and off-shoring•Fragmentation of labour solidarity•Hollowing out of white collar work•Crowdsourcing for free labour

•Virtual Work

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Clickworker

ElancerTurker

Cloudworker

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On-site

Location of Work

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Off-site

Who works through these systems?

Working and Unemployed

Students – gaining experience, reputation or spare cash

People with families looking for flexibility

Disabled housebound

Rural dwellers

Middle-aged restarters

Retired people supplementing pension

• People in traditional Freelance occupations Designers Translators Accountants Programmers

• Small Business• Hipsters

Professionals in South Asia and other emerging economies

Microbusiness and freelancers buying services from others

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Types of tasks (after Frei)

Size, org,pay example

Microtasks High volume; low pay per task; automated

Transcription, classifying, price search, find simple info

'Macro'-tasks High volume, low pay, automated

Product review, simple testing, simple info collecting (e.g marketing)

Simple projects Low volume, single tasks, with skill and moderate pay. Direct contact

Design a websiteDo accountsWrite a presentationDesign a logo

Complex projects Single projects, high pay, often multiple people, direct contact

Scientific challengesAlgorithm designComplex research

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TWO GENERIC OPERATING AND BUSINESS MODELS

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Crowd

Crowdsourced Microwork model

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Crowd Platforms

Task Managers and Resellers

Local intermediaries

Curating the crowd

Clients (direct integration)Clients (ad hoc)

APIs

Crowd self-organising

Microwork designWorkflow integrationQuality

MatchingRecruitmentWorker interface (motivation, quality, payment), APIs,

BPO workforce

Freelancer Marketplace model

TrustEfficiencyTransparency

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ContractorsClientsIntermediaries and market makers

Large clients

MatchingPaymentsQualityDispute managementSupportWork platforms

Value added services CompetitionsContracts

Rent-a-crowds

Teams

Access to clientsSupport and training

Access to Cntractors

Value added services Tax

TrainingMentorsResources

Existing research concerns and results

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Research on online exchangesCrowdsourcing – business models +some critical user studies (Brabham 2010, 2011, 2013).

Elancing’ from an HR perspective (Aguinis and Lawal 2013)

Microtask platform use – e.g. in scientific experiments (Iperitos 2008,210a, 2010b)

Labour economics perspective (Agrawal et al 2013)

Virtual labour Huws 2003; Scholz 2012; Kleemann and Voß, 2008; Huws 2013; Holts (2013) Caraway (2010) )

Legal issues (Felstiner (2011)

Microworker identity (Lehdonvirta and Mezier (2013)

Microworker empowerment - Turkopticon (Irani and Silberman 2013). 2704/12/23

Open the black box of job search (Petrongolo and Pissarides, 2001; Marchal et al 2007).

formal and informal information channels (e.g. Granovetter 1974)

role of intermediaries whose work is to match vacancies sellers and buyers (see Marchal et al 2007).

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Literature

Practitioner Interviews

Short Cases

Inductive

In depth qualitative cases and analysis Outsourced to Warwick university

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ICT4EMPL

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Specialist Generalist

Global Proz (Translators)Microtask

Elance; AMT

National/Regional

Trada (optimizers)

PPH; Clickworker

Local Rated People (domestic trades)Slivers (Social care)

(Local listings)

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12 000 000

$16 000 000 000

Online freelance sites:12m worldwide (World Bank estimates from adding top 3 elancer sites, neglects multiple membership)

Elance 2.3+ million registered users715k in US, 359k India, 80k UK$200m elancer earnings. 48% say main source of income

Odesk Matched 35m hours of work in 2012workers in 179 countries $360m earned. 2/3 workers >50% of family income

Freelancer claims 7m registered workers, 4.5m completed projectsStaffing industry Analysts estimate $1bn value in 2012 ($2bn 2014)

Proz 600 000 registered translators, 20 000 paying members

Trada10000s of users300 regular workers

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Microwork Numbers

Clickworker 300 000 Clickworkers1/3 Germany, 1/3 rest of Europe 1/3 North America

Crowdflower Claim a crowd of over 2 million4m human judgments per day959,582,877 judgements (8/6/2013)

Amazon Mechanical Turk“The only numbers that we share

regarding our Worker population

are these two: Over 500K

registered Workers from over

190 countries worldwide.” Jan

2011

Jobs 1cent-$10

Iperitos, using 2008 data

Turkers are younger.

Turkers are mainly female.

Turkers have lower income. of

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Rates of Pay

Clickworker 8-9euros/hourElance – minimum $3/hourMturk $0.10 1-2min HIT

Penny HITS - for the desperate, adjusted to local (low wage) labour rates.

X Time worked

Clickworker most people earn less than $300/monthTrada – top earners on >$5 000 month full timeOdesk – 2/3 earn over 50% of family income.Proz – full time professional occupation

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In Europe

There are microworkers (culturally specific microtasks)

There are online freelancers etc

How many?

Millions

How could we count them?

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VALUE AND RISKS

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Value and risks for clients

New Value

Only solutionOn demandSpeedScalable

•Exploit crowd effects•Analytics•Assured service•High service quality for specific work

HR•Lower HR search costs•No/low employment costs or obligations•Greater selection of workers•Access to global pool of talent+ global wage rates

Risks•Low control•Too much choice•Lower quality•Disadvantages of non-permanent staff•Job specification•Privacy and confidentiality•Complexity of some microwork

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Suggested value and risk for workers

‘Free’, ‘Cheap’, 'exploitation 'insecurity'

‘Flexible’, 'freedom', 'opportunity'

Non-economic

FlexibilitySelf employmentWork-life balanceLife courseTry out, and learn new skillsSomething to do

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Economic

Makes independent work more feasibleRe-enter labour market‘Extra cash’ Supplement main income

Access to (global) clientsTransparency of markets - Trust in marketBuild a portfolio of clients.

Specialisation (Malone et al)Access to work for excludedTools for productivityDevelop skills and employability

Key business innovations

How did these exchanges become this way and where are they going?

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Intermediaries need to attract and keep customers in a sceptical and competitive market

Multiple Quality Systems

‘

Market management

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Trust and Quality

E-REPUTATION, RATINGS AND QUALIFICATIONS

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E- Reputation in the marketplace

Workers

Rating on every job

Algorithmic Reputation Calculation

Computer generated story

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•Failure can be terminal (compare with Tripadvisor)

Dispute resolution

Reputation – the Client/Buyers

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ARating by supplierBluebook comments

BNo ratingOff-platform fora or hacktivism (Turkopticon)

Depends on the business model of intermediary, and the balance of the market.

Qualifications and Validated workers

•Real-life Qualifications

•Virtual Qualification

•'Gold' tests

•Access to good work (promotion)

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Disputes over qualification tests

“I was up until 1.00am completing the Qualify Author section. This morning I checked and they only scored me 58%. I felt this was a good article which fitted the brief and used SEO [Search engine optimization] words so I have emailed them. I'm pretty sure it was because the computer timed me (even though I didn't see anywhere which said this was a timed section) out as I'm 4 stars on text broker and got 100% on the 72 questions.”

“ Had an email back. They agreed the article was better than the 58% and have changed my mark. He explained it was a little off topic and doesn't need to have witty remarks and more about keywords. At least I can work for them now. (moneysavingexpert.com, 2012)

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Transferability

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Private marketplaces – privatised qualification & reputation scores

Non-TransferableKey to business model – keep workers on the platform

BUTUser-driven portabilityPosting reputation scores outside the site (Linkedin)

Growing recognition.

THE CROWD: INDIVIDUALIST OR COLLECTIVIST?

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Worker Support and networking

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A community from a crowd

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Emerging e-working ecosystem

Ecosystem of competitive services and user-generated support

User Organisation activities

• Worker support from the exchange

• Worker mutual support in third spaces (e.g. http://cloudmebaby.com/mturkblog/ moneysavingexpert.com )

• Worker-led creation of closed shops

• Interventions to add support tools

• Platforms as tools for building teams, subcontracting and building businesses

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Crowds become communities that:Support techno-socialisation into the practices and logic of work though online exchanges – how to perform in this new eco-system.

Subversion of exchange logic

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Policy Questions and Challenges

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Enterprise - SMEsHow much start-up, SME and microbusiness growth will/could this type of work exchange create?

In what sectors? Countries?

How many people might this growth provide work for?For how much of their time?For what overall income?In which sectors of the workforce

What kind of support could be given to promote access to services through these exchanges?

• Awareness; certification; Legal consistency across Europe? Identity proof?

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Employment and EmployabilityDoes working through exchanges and crowdsourcing platforms provide:-Access to work-Income-Entry to work-Opportunity to build skillsFor whom, in what sectors, in what countries? Who does it exclude?

Which sort of people are better prepared for this work, and why?

How can we support people to develop freelance skills and work ?

Could this be integrated with public employment services, how, where?

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Export of Jobs?

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Welfare issues

Self-employed: low earnings, discontinuous work, low skills, long and non-standard working hours, the high incidence of industrial accidents and work-related health problems

Do we want to encourage this?

Or do we just have to cope with this reality?

Policy concerns -Policy barriers to autonomous workers-The EES not adapting to atypical work

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Platform Support?Why do these platforms not exist in some

sectors/countries/regions?Are what rate are they growing?What would be the impact on employment (growth,

reduction) and wages if they did exist?If they are desirable to support growth and/or

employment,

What can public policy makers and public services do to: Stimulate growth in these platforms – focused in sectors, regions that will most benefit/most in need?Integration of e-government services with platforms.

What are the Risks of promoting this type of working?Insecure work, exploitation, resistance from social partners

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Potential policy interest

Reactive

Training and skillsConstraints on autonomous workers in EuropeProtection of workersFlexibility in hiring freelancersAdapt e-gov systems

Long term Welfare and Economic issues

Proactive

1.Model and ideas for social innovation: Public services

PES• Public service ‘delivery’

2. Active promotion of work these working patterns: opportunities for• New jobs • Entrepreneurs• SMEs• Digital economy• Excluded citizens• Employment transitions

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Discuss

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Summary

Explore: Innovation and investment necessary to build confidence in platforms, and attract clients and contractors

Conditions of work, including the pressures of working for and within software machines

Potential socio-economic impact

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More info on the JRC-IPTS research

JRC-IPTS Employability-The Future of Work

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Or James Stewart j.k.stewart@ed.ac.uk