The platform economy will stimulate employment, according to 60% of HR managers

This article was written and published in Spanish and has been translated into English via Google Translate. Click here to read the original article.

For years now, thanks to new technologies, platforms of the so-called platform economy have burst onto society and the labor market, and many are the examples that can come to mind today. While it is true that the European Union supports this type of exchange platform, many aspects of its regulation or conditions have yet to be defined, and a conflict of interests has sometimes arisen between the so-called traditional sectors and the platform economy platforms. Where should the regulation of this economy go? What will be the labor relations between one and another alternative?

In order to deepen this topic, the Adecco Group, a world leader in human resources management, and the Cuatrecasas Institute of Legal Strategy in Human Resources, have conducted more than 200 qualitative and quantitative interviews to human resources managers representing the Spanish territory and with the presence of all economic sectors to know their opinion on the platform economy and its direct and indirect impact on human resources.

This report is part of the Technos Project, which aims to analyze individualized and, at the same time, interrelated, the impact of each of the major new technologies in both the corporate and organizational structure of work and, in turn, the consequences for employment and for the management of human resources. Within the framework of this project, directed by the Cuatrecasas Institute, five reports on the impact of social networks, robotics, Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence and the blockchain have already been published.

The economy of platforms and employment

One of the great questions raised to those responsible for Human Resources surveyed by Adecco and Cuatrecasas is whether the platform economy will stimulate employment. And most of them, 59.3%, think that this will be the case when these platforms become more regulated.

On the other hand, there are 37.4% who think that the platform economy will generate many jobs in the coming years regardless of their regulation or not. Only 3.3% of HR managers believe that they will not be a source of employment.

Asked also by the effect that greater regulation would have on this type of company, 71.4% of the professionals consulted believe that the platforms would end up adapting without problems to the regulations, 25.3% think that such regulation would be very harmful for these platforms and 3.3% say that a new stricter legislation would mean the end of the platform economy. Salvador del Rey, president of the Cuatrecasas Institute for Legal Strategy in Human Resources, points out that "companies in the platform economy must act in accordance with the marked insecurity that exists and will exist for a time regarding the nature of the relationship that binds them together. with the service providers."

Looking to a more concrete future, these professionals have been consulted if they believe that the platform economy is the employment model of the future and only 21.1% share this thought, although 8 out of 10 (78.9%) They declare that although this will not be the case, the weight of this model will continue to grow in the coming years. No one believes that it will be a minority option or that it will lose weight in the medium term.

In this sense, 41.6% of respondents believe that traditional companies will end up incorporating the economy of platforms in their structures, while 31.5% think that Public Administrations will limit their freedom so that they adapt to conventional regulations. The remaining 27% believe that the situation will be similar to the one that exists today.

In addition, 48.4% of HR professionals believe that in two years the conditions of the workers of these platforms will have improved although 36.3% think they will remain the same and even 15.4% bet that the conditions labor will be worse than the rest of the sectors.

Other changes that the platform economy will bring

Another of the major issues addressed in this survey has been to know what impact the platform economy will have on the price of services and products from more traditional channels.

In this regard, 2 out of every 3 consulted in our country consider that the economy of platforms will end up forcing a decline in prices in the traditional economy and that more traditional sectors will have to adapt to it in order not to disappear. Although 25.3% believe that both pricing policies can coexist indistinctly and the remaining 11% believes that it will be the platform economy that must raise its prices to match the traditional economy.

In this sense, 77.3% of respondents see that passenger transport will be the sector most affected by the advance of the economy of platforms, followed by the hotel sector (63.6% of responses), that of logistics and commercial transport (47.7%) and distribution (46.6%).

To a lesser extent, they also consider that the entertainment and leisure sector, the hotel industry, the automotive industry and retail will be affected.

Finally, almost half of HR professionals (48.9%) believe that the platform economy has democratized services and experiences for workers, compared to 24.4% who think that this is not the case. The remaining 26.7% do not know what to think about this matter. In this regard, Guillermo Tena, director of the Cuatrecasas Institute indicates that "in the consideration of employed experience it seems to make sense to incorporate the independent professionals who provide services to the platform economy company as they contribute in the same way that they can contribute employees "from the payroll" to the experience that the client may have with the company ".

This article was written and published in Spanish and has been translated into English via Google Translate. Click here to read the original article.

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