Flexibility in setting one’s work schedules to attain work-life balance is among the major reasons for choosing to work on platforms.
ILO survey findings reveal that working hours can vary considerably across different types of platforms, with serious implications for work-life balance.
Workers on online web-based platforms spend a lot of time doing unpaid work.
On average, they work 27 hours in a typical week, including both paid and unpaid work, with about one-third of their time, or eight hours spent on unpaid work.
For every hour of paid tasks, workers spend about 23 minutes on freelance platforms and 20 minutes on microtask platforms doing unpaid work.
While half the workers on online web-based platforms work for 20 hours a week or less, one out of five respondents reported working over 40 hours per week.
On freelance platforms, the average number of hours worked was 30 hours, with almost a quarter working for more than 40 hours.
Average working hours are comparatively low on competitive programming (18 hours) and microtask platforms (24 hours).
However, while half of the workers on microtask platforms work 16 hours or less, 20 percent of those surveyed were working over 40 hours, indicating considerable variations.
"I am a full-time mother during the day and a full-time freelancer during the night. My “night” is the US “day” so, besides that, I need some sleep, everything works well for me – Female respondent on freelance platform Upwork (Romania).”
Working hours
Workers on online web-based platforms spend their time doing both online work and other paid jobs. About half of online web-based platform workers have other paid jobs, which primarily include salaried employees (45 per cent), employees working for an hourly or daily wage (23 per cent), and freelancers (21 per cent).
They spend 28 hours on average in a typical week in those jobs.
In addition, they work on average for 26 hours on online platforms, which can make their working week long.
The need for such long working hours is indicative of low pay in both the online and offline labour markets.
On microtask platforms, the majority of workers are engaged in other paid jobs (52 per cent) and on average work 30 hours in that job.
The proportion of workers engaged in other paid jobs is lower on freelance.
For every hour of paid tasks, workers spend about 23 minutes on freelance platforms and 20 minutes on microtask platforms doing unpaid work.
Platforms (42 per cent) and competitive programming (23 per cent), where they work on average 22 and 27 hours a week, respectively.
Developing countries
Workers in developing countries work longer hours on online web-based platforms.
On average, respondents in developing countries work much more (32 hours) in a typical week (including paid and unpaid work) than their counterparts in developed countries (20 hours). This may be ascribed to their greater reliance on online work as a primary source of income.
In addition, workers in developing countries spend more time a week doing unpaid work (9 hours) than those in developed countries (5 hours).
This discrepancy could be due to the restrictions that workers from developing countries can encounter on the platforms, such as exclusion from certain tasks.
Some workers on online web-based platforms have unpredictable work schedules and unsocial hours, particularly in developing countries.
While the platforms promote flexibility and freedom to work at any time, the ILO surveys show that workers face limitations in choosing their work schedules.
On freelance platforms, about 82 per cent of respondents indicated that clients request them to be available outside normal hours either sometimes or regularly.
Such requests from clients are more common in developing countries (85 per cent) than in developed countries (76 per cent).
About 63 per cent of respondents in China and 31 per cent in Ukraine reported that they receive such requests. This may be because most clients tend to be based in developed countries, with associated time differences.
Similarly, on microtask platforms the majority of workers in developing countries (53 per cent) work during the night (10 p.m. to 5 a.m.); they have to adapt to the temporal distribution of jobs, as work is often posted during US business hours – evening or night time for workers in Africa and Asia (Rani and Furrer, forthcoming; O’Neill 2018).
Comments