Posts by Vili Lehdonvirta

About Vili Lehdonvirta

Vili Lehdonvirta is an Associate Professor and Senior Research Fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute. He is an economic sociologist with a background in computer science.

Introducing the Online Labour Observatory: Data on female participation in the remote gig economy and more

20 May 2021 0

We are excited to announce a new collaboration between the Oxford Internet Institute’s iLabour team and the International Labour Organization (ILO), a United Nations agency. This collaboration is called the Online Labour Observatory—a digital data hub for researchers, policy makers, journalists, and the public interested in the development of online labour markets. Many software developers, graphic… Read More: Introducing the Online Labour Observatory: Data on female participation in… »

EU countries are rolling out systems to tax income from the platform economy

27 April 2020 0

Income earned through gig apps, freelancing platforms, letting platforms, and other digital intermediaries presents big challenges for taxation and social insurance. People should voluntarily report income from these sources to authorities, but in practice this doesn’t always happen. For instance, only 69 taxpayers reported income from Uber and Bolt in Estonia in 2016, even though… Read More: EU countries are rolling out systems to tax income from… »

Team news: Original trio moves on, new members join

17 February 2020 0

The iLabour research project is now well into its final year, and I have some staff changes to report. Exciting new members have joined the team for the final lap, and our three original postdocs have moved on to wonderful new jobs, while continuing to collaborate with the project. Our organizational sociologist Dr Gretta Corporaal… Read More: Team news: Original trio moves on, new members join »

Flexibility in the gig economy: How workers manage time on online piecework platforms

10 January 2018 0

Gig economy platforms seem to provide extreme temporal flexibility to workers, giving them full control over how to spend each hour and minute of the day. What constraints do workers face when attempting to exercise this flexibility in practice, and how can platform design influence this? I have just posted on SSRN a new paper… Read More: Flexibility in the gig economy: How workers manage time on… »

How Uber is changing transportation in Southeast Asia – and with what lessons for Europe

7 September 2017 0

This is a guest article written by OII doctoral candidate Godofredo Ramizo Jr., who is researching the socio-political impact of ride apps in Southeast Asian megacities. Uber and other ride hailing companies have battled regulators in Europe and the US, and faced suspensions in the midst of violent protests from threatened taxi operators and their… Read More: How Uber is changing transportation in Southeast Asia – and… »

How the world’s largest companies use online freelancing platforms: New report

29 August 2017 0

Online labour platforms allow companies to source work from freelancers over the Internet on an on-demand basis. We know that this phenomenon grew about 26 percent globally over the past year, and there is an increasing amount of research available on workers who work through these platforms (including our own). But there is a gap… Read More: How the world’s largest companies use online freelancing platforms: New… »