Real-time economic statistics tool for measuring the online gig economy

ended

"It is widely recognized both in the research literature as well as among policymakers that existing economic statistics are not well suited to measuring work that is transacted entirely digitally via websites and apps (the so-called online gig economy). To address this problem, as part of the ERC-funded research project iLABOUR, we have developed the ""Online Labour Index"" (OLI), an online gig economy equivalent of conventional labour market statistics. The OLI has already had major international social impact by exposing the geographic and occupational divisions in the otherwise invisible online labour market. But our availability has become a bottleneck for realising its maximum social benefit. Currently, when policy makers, journalists, and other practitioners wish to use the OLI data in their publications, a degree of expert manual work is required to turn the raw data into a suitable form, such as an Excel file comprising easily digestible data on the relevant countries, occupations, and time spans. As a result, in response to the demand from the practitioners, we have ended up performing an unsustainable amount of manual work to help them access the data. Using the resources of the PoC grant, we will: 1) Develop a user-friendly online interface for the OLI that allows practitioners to export Excel files of their desired specification to use in preparing policy reports, journalistic articles, and similar. 2) Establish a partnership with a public organization that will turn the OLI from a research experiment into a public tool that will continue to be available after the end of the iLABOUR research project. 3) Further disseminate the OLI's findings by writing policy reports based on the OLI data in cooperation with selected partners, and 4) Establish a roadmap and funding model for the future development and expansion of the OLI in accordance with practitioner needs."