IER News & blogs
Digital platforms, decent work and developing countries
Dr. Jamelia Harris has published a new in the journal Development in Practice. With the rise of platform work in developing countries, the paper attempts to position this trend in the decent work agenda by exploring the conditions likely to be associated with measurable decent platform work.
The analysis uses Fairwork as a proxy for decent work and offers indicative findings that having verifiable evidence to score fair and decent work among platform companies is correlated with the level of development, regulatory quality, and having surplus labour. Findings are also suggestive of ethical relativism as the same platform is less likely to have evidence of working conditions in developing vs developed countries. From a policy standpoint, the findings reinforce previous calls for international standards to regulate platform companies, and make the case for international organisations to help capacitate local agents to effectively monitor platform work.
How the interaction of AI and algorithmic management shapes job quality outcomes
The study, titled "" challenges conventional narratives that technological exposure alone dictates workforce outcomes. The research maps how worker-led AI tool usage and employer-led algorithmic management collide to create deeply stratified workplace realities.
Ultimately, the analysis indicates that supply-side policy frameworks focusing solely on worker upskilling or expanding technology access have structural limitations. Dr Lee demonstrates that without directly regulating algorithmic monitoring and control practices, expanding AI access risks simply transitioning more workers into high-intensity, highly managed configurations rather than genuinely empowering them.
Chris Warhurst speaks at Cedefop event promoting skills, productivity and job quality
The European Commission is keen to deliver a Quality Jobs Roadmap. Director of IER, Chris Warhurst was invited to speak at a Cedefop in Thessaloniki in June.
Attended by European employers, trade unions and policymakers, the event focused on the skills nexus between productivity and job quality, with Chris presenting data on the link between job quality and innovation and productivity as part of building the business case for good jobs.