Unprecedented research by IBGE demonstrates the precariousness of platform services

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According to the research, platform workers such as passenger drivers (Uber) and cyclists are more precarious
According to the research, platform workers such as passenger drivers (Uber) and cyclists are more precarious (Photos: Rovena Rosa/Agência Brasil and Antonio Scarpinetti)

Deliverers and drivers who work through digital platforms receive, respectively, R$3,4 and R$1,9 less, per hour, than their counterparts who do not use racing apps or other digital informational and communication tools to work , even if they work longer to obtain this income. This is the situation revealed by the first survey carried out by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) on teleworking and workers via digital platforms. The research, released this Wednesday (October 25), is the result of an agreement established by the institute with the Public Ministry of Labor (MPT) and Unicamp.

The data collected by the project are part of the Continuous National Household Sample Survey (Pnad) and reveal a more critical situation in relation to platformed couriers, a category that receives from those companies, on average, monthly, an amount below the minimum wage (considering income/ hour worked) for their services, said the two Unicamp professors in charge of leading the work undertaken to make this endeavor viable: José Dari Krein, researcher at the Center for Union Studies and Labor Economics (Cesit) and professor at the Institute of Economics (IE ), and Ricardo Antunes, founder and coordinator of the World of Work and its Metamorphoses Research Group (GPMT), based at the Institute of Philosophy and Human Sciences (IFCH), both at the University.

Professors José Dario Krein (Institute of Economics) and Ricardo Antunes (
Professors José Dari Krein (Cesit/IE), on the left, and Ricardo Antunes (IFCH): platformed delivery drivers receive from companies, on average, a monthly amount below the minimum wage (Photos: Antonio Scarpinetti/Antoninho Perri)

According to the professors, the large-scale data presented corroborates constant analyzes of previous studies developed in different regions of Brazil and in other countries. For Antunes, this is scientific evidence about a reality in which digital companies that operate globally benefit to a large extent. “We already had regional portraits of what is happening, but with the rigor, technical competence and scope that IBGE is capable of delivering, we now have a record of a more general trend”, assesses the sociologist.

MPT attorney Clarissa Ribeiro Schinestsck believes that the research contributes to fostering public debate around the regulation of work on digital platforms, including from a social security point of view – which is only possible through official data. “The statistics open up the possibility of creating effective public policies and planning on the actions of bodies defending decent work, at the same time that they clearly demonstrate the informality present in this type of work, the strong dependence of workers on platforms, longer working hours and lower income when compared to that of non-platformed workers in the private sector", he ponders.

Chaired by economist and Unicamp professor Marcio Pochmann, IBGE takes the lead, in Latin America, in mapping a category of work that is spreading across the world and threatening to swallow up occupations as diverse as journalists and taxi drivers. “The transition to the Digital Era has reconfigured work in the world. The quantity and quality of jobs in each country respond to the way in which each country participates in the international division of labor. The situation of digital occupations tends to be an expression, in general, of the insertion [of each country] in this division”, analyzes the president of the institute, who cites the covid-19 pandemic as an important factor in explaining the spread of this type of work in the Brazil.

The president of IBGE, Márcio Pochamann and Labor attorney, Clarissa
The president of IBGE, Márcio Pochmann, and the Labor attorney, Clarissa Ribeiro Schinestsck: encourage public debate around the regulation of work on digital platforms (Photos: Marcelo Camargo/Agência Brasil and Divulgação MPT)

Objective work

The objective of the two groups of researchers from Unicamp, in the agreement, was to think about questions to provide IBGE with instruments capable of capturing with effective measurement what work through platforms is and how the activities carried out by platforms in the labor market are designed in a fact in Brazil.

To this end, Antunes emphasizes, we sought to prioritize objectivity. “Depending on how an interview is conducted, what is asked, there is a risk of losing the concreteness of social reality and the condition of this working social being. It was necessary to create a set of elements to allow IBGE research to verify what, and how, this work actually is, understanding the worker's journey, how they connect, when they are activated by the platform and when they are not and, finally, , how you receive your salary, which, in fact, is called income by companies”, summarizes the professor.

When the research was carried out, 1,49 million Brazilians belonging to the desired demographic group worked through these applications, the majority using digital service tools as their main occupation. The research took place in the fourth quarter of 2022, covering those who engaged, at least once during this period, in any activity that constituted remote work or teleworking – a situation in which the person works from a location other than the establishment to which they are linked. , formally or not, through the use of digital equipment (generally a computer, tablet or cell phone) with internet access.

During the research period, the employed population in the country aged 14 and over – excluding public and military employees – constituted 87,2 million people, of which 2,1 million carried out work through digital platforms (Uber and GetNinjas, 99freela, among others) or obtained customers and made sales through e-commerce platforms (Shopee, Magazine Luiza, Mercado Livre, for example), as their main work. Of these, around 1,49 million worked through service applications and 628 thousand used e-commerce platforms.

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In relation to passenger drivers who work from applications and delivery people – a category that makes up platform users –, in addition to being more precarious, they presented, according to the x-ray, a predominantly male profile (81%), a population with intermediate levels of education. (61%) and a smaller portion of people without education or with incomplete primary education (14%, compared to 18% of the rest of those employed in Brazil, except public servants and military personnel).

A very different reality emerged in terms of those interviewed by the IBGE survey who classified themselves as teleworkers. From an objective point of view, Krein compares, both platform workers and teleworkers are linked to the same technological process – job vacancies created through the development of the same innovations. However, “these are two very different worlds, revealing the inequality and heterogeneity of our market. The contrasts were quite clear: if in teleworking the presence of more white people and/or with higher education is evident, in more precarious jobs the distribution by race is more balanced and there are more people without the same level of training”, he notes. . “Contrary to what companies say about these workers, they have no other alternative and are subject to a situation in which they have no rights or social security, as there is a shortage of occupations. It's not about entrepreneurs. There is, indeed, a very significant surplus mass with low income.”

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The research makes clear the precariousness, social insecurity and also the degree of subordination of workers who are unable to impose limits on their working hours (Photo: Antonio Scarpinetti)

In the wild

The research dismantles the misleading discourse of digital service platforms, which promise higher earnings to their registered users. The result of the study, stresses Krein, must be read within the reality of the Brazilian labor market, “in which 56 million people are looking for work or in the informal sector and 71% of the total earn less than two minimum wages”. “This is fundamental to understand that working through digital platforms is inserted and only made viable in a very bad reality, marked by many limitations and precarious work”, says the economist, for whom the new Pnad makes the risks involved evident. in the dissemination of a model that imposes itself as a “time bomb for Brazilian society” in the medium term. “We have to rethink society in a context of deeper crisis, in a context of need for ecological transition and to overcome growing social inequality. And these data show the urgency of doing so. A society like ours is capable of discussing these fundamental questions about work in contemporary society and its role.”

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The research makes clear the precariousness, social insecurity and also the degree of subordination of workers who are unable to impose limits on their working hours or choose where they work or choose who or what they want to transport. To top it off, motorcycle couriers and drivers spend hours at the disposal of these companies during which they are not called to work. On the other hand, if they are not always available, they end up overlooked by the platforms' algorithms. “And they don’t get paid anything for it [for the hours of idleness]. If they are absent due to an accident or for health reasons, they will not be entitled to health or social security leave”, highlights Antunes.

In addition to not having a social security framework or the protection of the law regarding their labor rights, these people face long working hours (application drivers work an average of seven hours more per month and delivery drivers, 4,8 hours) which compromise their mental and physical health, leading them to a scenario of exhaustion before they even reach retirement age – which they will not have access to either. “This is a tragic reality with a dark perspective”, says Antunes. “Delivery workers, for example, have no place to eat lunch and no toilet facilities available. Therefore, it is not surprising that their salaries are very different from those of the CLT class, because this is where we have the companies' 'cat leap': by not paying labor rights, they directly benefit from a situation that has enabled their transformation into large global corporations.”

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Read more: 

IBGE-PNAD research demonstrates the precariousness of work on digital platforms

Watch LIVE the PNAD launch press conference "Teleworking and work through digital platforms 2022", starting at 16 pm:

 

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The situation of delivery people and drivers who work through digital platforms is revealed by the first survey carried out by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (Photo: Antoninho Perri)

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Writer and columnist, the sociologist was president of the National Association of Postgraduate Studies and Research in Social Sciences in the 2003-2004 biennium