64th ISI World Statistics Congress - Ottawa, Canada

64th ISI World Statistics Congress - Ottawa, Canada

Measuring digital platform employment - challenges, approaches, and insights- the US Experience

Conference

64th ISI World Statistics Congress - Ottawa, Canada

Format: IPS Abstract

Keywords: digital economy

Abstract

Recently, researchers, policy makers, and the public have had a great deal of interest in digital platform workers. However, despite this interest, measuring digital platform workers has presented unique definitional and operational challenges. This presentation discusses the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) experience in measuring these workers in a supplement to its labor force survey—the Current Population Survey (CPS)—known as the Contingent Worker Supplement. The first part of the presentation documents the various conceptual decisions that were made in determining how to define digital platform employment and what to measure. The second part of the presentation discusses the approach BLS took in operationalizing the measurement of digital platform employment and why this approach was chosen. Specifically, BLS did not ask people if they worked for designated platforms by name or engaged in typical types of platform activities. Instead, BLS decided to ask whether people’s work involved attributes that characterize digital platform employment. The presentation concludes with a discussion of the issues that arose with BLS’s first attempt to measure digital platform workers in 2017, and the changes that were incorporated into the 2023 Contingent Worker Supplement. This part of the presentation includes a discussion of cognitive testing results of the 2023 questions and lessons learned from this testing.