Welcome to the European Parliamentary Research Service podcasts.

In this podcast, we'll talk about platform workers and how to improve their working conditions in the EU.

Want to know more? Stay with us.

Occasionally renting a room in a private flat? Getting a ride from the airport to the city centre?

Or ordering a pizza on Friday evening?

Then you're one of the many users of services offered by digital platforms.

You may be familiar with Airbnb, Uber or TaskRabbit.

But did you know that there are more than 500 digital platforms active in the EU?

They employ 28 million people, and this number is expected to rise to 43 million by 2025.

It is certainly a profitable business, with revenues in 2020 estimated to be as high as 20 billion euros. But with demand for such services

growing exponentially, especially since the pandemic, attention has been brought to the often

poor working conditions of platform workers. So, what's the issue here? The main problem is that

platform work is considered a non-standard form of employment,

which means there are no rules on the working conditions and social rights of platform workers

in standard labour law. As a result, many of them face poor working conditions and access to

social protection. Did you know that over half of people working

through platforms own less than the net hourly minimum wage of the country they are working in?

They also spend a lot of unpaid time doing research tasks and waiting for assignments.

And risk being misclassified as self-employed despite working mostly or exclusively for one employer.

In addition, the use of algorithms in platform work can raise questions of accountability and transparency.

So, what is the EU doing to protect these workers?

Well, platform work is so varied that it's difficult to find a one-size-fits-all

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