Fairwork Austria Ratings 2022: Labour Standards in the Platform Economy

Abstract

Although Austria’s system of “social partnership” has provided stable protections for workers historically, the Fairwork Austria Report 2022 finds that many who work for digital labour platforms do not enjoy the same levels of security the system affords. Successive crises have pushed up unemployment and non-standard forms of work which lie outside of the arrangement. This timely report from the Fairwork Austria Team sheds light on the poor working conditions to which workers in the platform economy are subjected, revealing that in some cases, workers are paid wages which put them bellow the poverty line.

The report presents the first set of Fairwork ratings for Austria and establishes a baseline for the country’s platform economy that will be updated on a yearly basis. Six platforms in the food delivery, ride-hailing, and cleaning services sectors were evaluated against five Principles of Fairwork, and given a score out of ten.