Platform Work and the COVID-19 Pandemic

Platform business models emerged with the growth of the Internet in the 1990s and are conceptualized as two- or multi-sided markets, as they facilitate exchange between service providers, clients (business) and workers. This article focuses on the impact of COVID-19 on digital labour platforms, such as freelance online web-based platforms and location-based platforms (transportation and delivery platforms), which have grown exponentially over the past decade. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed immediately some of the vulnerabilities that the workers in the platform economy were facing as they were declared as part of the ‘emergency services’, and this note explores their conditions during the pandemic.