Online Labour Index: Measuring the Online Gig Economy for Policy and Research

Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Forthcoming

31 Pages Posted: 4 Sep 2018

See all articles by Otto Kässi

Otto Kässi

Etla

Vili Lehdonvirta

University of Oxford - Oxford Internet Institute

Date Written: August 21, 2018

Abstract

Labour markets are thought to be in the midst of a dramatic transformation, where standard employment is increasingly supplemented or substituted by temporary work mediated by online platforms. Yet the scale and scope of these changes is hard to assess, because conventional labour market statistics and economic indicators are ill-suited to measuring this “online gig work”. We present the Online Labour Index (OLI), an experimental economic indicator that approximates the conventional labour market statistic of new open vacancies. It measures the utilization of online labour across countries and occupations by tracking the number of projects and tasks posted on major online gig platforms in near-real time. The purpose of this article is to introduce the OLI and describe the methodology behind it. We also demonstrate how it can be used to address previously unanswered questions about the online gig economy. To benefit policymakers, labour market researchers and the general public, our results are published in an interactive online visualisation which is updated daily.

Keywords: online freelancing, online labour markets, online gig economy, measurement, statistics, measurement of vacancies, web data collection

Suggested Citation

Kässi, Otto and Lehdonvirta, Vili, Online Labour Index: Measuring the Online Gig Economy for Policy and Research (August 21, 2018). Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3236285

Otto Kässi

Etla ( email )

Lonnrotink. 4 B
FIN-00120 Helsinki, 00120
United States

HOME PAGE: http://www.etla.fi

Vili Lehdonvirta (Contact Author)

University of Oxford - Oxford Internet Institute ( email )

1 St. Giles
University of Oxford
Oxford, Oxfordshire OX1 3JS
United Kingdom

HOME PAGE: http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk

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