Raising standards for workers in the global digital economy

Technology is changing the way we work. The platform economy is booming, remote work is now standard, and AI is increasingly being adopted to make workers more efficient. But while businesses are making productivity gains, digital workers are often left struggling with job insecurity, poor working conditions and insufficient pay. An action-research project from the Oxford Internet Institute and the WZB Berlin Social Science Center has been looking at how we redress the balance, encouraging companies to put fairer principles into practice around the world.

Led by Professor Mark Graham (Oxford Internet Institute), Fairwork aims to better understand the landscape of platform work and push for fairer treatment of vulnerable workers in the global gig economy. The team has worked closely with an international network of academics, policymakers, workers and organisations to develop the Fairwork Principles. These principles assess companies based on five factors: fair pay, fair conditions, fair contracts, fair management and fair representation. To put these principles into practice, Fairwork developed a methodology enabling them to score companies on a ten-point scale against those principles.

“By scoring a range of companies and business models, our aim is to show that low pay, exploitation, and dangerous working conditions are not inevitable,” says Professor Graham. “They are choices made by societies, governments, and companies. And they are choices that can be unmade.”

Since 2021, Fairwork has evaluated over 700 companies in 40 countries worldwide. These include location-based platforms – such as food delivery and taxi services, cloudwork platforms that source workers for digital and creative services, and companies using AI systems in the workplace.

Companies have so far made over 370 pro-worker policy changes as a result of assessment, with improvements including access to union representation, wage increases, and improvements to health and safety. Platforms are also able to sign up to the Fairwork Pledge, showing their commitment to fair treatment of workers and allowing consumers and workers to make more informed decisions.

Fairwork is also feeding into policy processes in Africa and the Middle East, Asia, Europe, and the Americas, playing an active role in shaping better legal protections and improving the lives of millions of gig economy workers around the world.

Dr Julio Federico Daverede (former Director Nacional de Trabajo Uruguay) says: “By using a rigorous, standardised methodology to assess the conditions of platform workers, Fairwork has brought academic evidence into the public domain, sparking wider debate on the rights and protections of gig economy workers. …Their commitment to amplifying the voices of often-overlooked workers and pushing for systemic change makes them outstanding advocates for the role of science in public life.”

Professor Mark Graham (Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford) and the Fairwork team were Highly Commended in the Scaling & Sustaining Impact category of the 2025 Social Sciences Impact Awards for Fairwork: generating pro-worker change in the digital economy.

Social Sciences Impact Awards 2025 (photo: John Cairns)