Recognition of qualifications in the gig economy

Platform workers provide their services in the EU through the medium of digital work intermediaries or so-called ‘platform employers’. These platform employers are considered innovative because they enable people or organisations to effectively outsource tasks to a large pool of on-demand workers at a very low cost. The ‘platform’—the technology enabling people to seek workers for a specific task or set of tasks—makes it easy to match supply and demand in the labour market because the platform facilitates access to a large and varied workforce. Essentially, the ability to increase the speed at which supply meets demand in the labour market facilitates a reduction in what economists call ‘transaction costs’, namely, the costs associated with locating and matching supply and demand. The development of digital work intermediaries or platforms has been branded the ‘platform economy’ because it enables almost anyone to perform work tasks, often from the comfort of their own home. An example will help to flesh out this point.