Non-labour Platforms and Their Effects on Work in Specific Sectors: A Major Gap in Recent Research on Work and Employment

This conceptual review chapter addresses a problem in research on platforms and work. On the one hand, the literature on “platformisation” and the “platform economy” has tended to neglect the topic of work. On the other, research specifically focused on work and labour tends to pay attention only to a relatively narrowly defined set of platforms. Specifically, scholarship on work has focused largely on the “labour platform”, and hence the “platform worker”. We argue this has meant the neglect of a crucial issue: how a range of non-labour platforms are affecting non-platform workers. To address this gap, we argue general terms (like “platform capitalism” or “platformisation”) are unhelpfully broad, and instead a focus on the specific conditions of sectors is needed to understand the implications of different forms of non-labour platform. We illustrate this argument with discussions of recent research on work in retail and hospitality work, and in the cultural and creative industries. In each case, the most important dynamics impacting working conditions are those derived from non-labour platforms, and the most profound effects are on non-platform workers. Moreover, in each case, the dynamics of platform-driven change are highly sector-specific, resisting general narratives about platform capitalism.