Research looks at the physical facts behind fiction’s fascination

Oxford researchers launch the Online Labour Index,  which finds US employers are the number one users of the 'online gig economy? (representing 52% of the market) but over the last few months UK employers have been fast catching up. The 'online gig economy' is a new labour market where employers use online labour platforms to engage workers for piecemeal, short-term or project-based work delivered over the internet. Oxford University researchers Professor Vili Lehdonvirta and Dr Otto Kässi  have constructed an Online Labour Index , which has already gathered a wealth of data on the online gig economy from sites and apps across the world between May-September 2016. It shows that employers in the United States are the biggest users of online platforms for recruiting freelance workers, representing 52% of all the vacancies posted, followed by Britain at 6. India at 5.9%, and Australia at 5. They were looking at adverts posted on sites such as Freelancer.com, PeoplePerHour and LinkedIn.  Jobs in well-known firms Uber and Deliveroo were not included as they operate offline too.