Who takes care of non-standard career paths? The role of labour market intermediaries

Abstract

As flexible career paths become more common in European labour markets, how to combine the flexibility required by non-standard work with new patterns of security is the focus of political debate. Some European Union (EU) countries have launched radical labour market reforms, while in others such reforms remain limited. This paves the way for bottom-up solutions developed by private and non-profit labour market intermediaries in order to support the job transitions of non-standard workers. We map these initiatives through a multidimensional grid and explore the extent to which they contribute to renewed regulation of modern labour markets. We outline two ideal-typical approaches. The first extends internal labour markets to triangular employment relationships by considering workers as ‘quasi-employees’. The second involves more disruptive solutions by treating non-standard workers as ‘quasi-self-employed’.

Autonomy at work in the gig economy: analysing work status, work content and working conditions of independent professionals

“…The various institutional contexts in which they operate—contrasting liberal and coordinated market economies (Hall and Soskice, )— may indeed shape their perceptions of autonomy, particularly when considering work statuses (Schulze Buschoff and Schmidt, ). Moreover, emerging third‐party actors’ initiatives (Lorquet et al ., ) aimed to support job transitions of independent professionals may also interfere with individual perceptions of autonomy, namely those related to working conditions. The kind of business in which independent professionals develop their activities is another influential factor: the IT sector is probably more structuring in terms of work content than the creative industry for instance, even though a growing standardisation may be observed in the latter field (Schörpf et al ., ).…”

A freelancers’ cooperative as a case of democratic institutional experimentation for better work: a case study of SMart-Belgium

“…While several studies of SMart and its worker-led initiative exist, none examine the organisation in terms of institutional experimentation (or the potential to engage in it). Beuker et al (2017) (and also Xhauflair et al, 2018; Lorquet et al, 2018) have treated SMart as an institutional player, positioning it as a labour market intermediary; Drahokoupil and Piasna (2019) have mainly analysed how its support has positively affected a small category of its (former) worker-members, Deliveroo riders. Such approaches to SMart reflect the two standard focuses of literature on self-employed, freelance, gig or project workers: first, the ‘precarious’ conditions of their work and employment (see Doellgast et al, 2018; Kalleberg, 2009) and their legitimate claims to labour protections (De Stefano, 2016); and second, institutions active in the triangulation of labour relations, including trade unions, associations and cooperatives (Benassi and Dorigatti, 2015; Bureau and Corsani, 2018; Gumbrell-McCormick 2011; Heckscher and Carré, 2006; Heery and al., 2004).…”

Emerging Forms of Precariousness Related to Autonomy at Work: Toward an Empirical Typology

“…Multiple empirical studies (Kuhn and Maleki, 2017;McKeown and Cochrane, 2017) argue that tailored initiatives including external workers (high road strategy) give modern organizations significant competitive advantages compared to those neglecting the contributions of external workers. In order to do so, HR managers have to learn new cooperation games, not only with internal actors (purchase, line and project managers, as suggested by Keegan et al, 2012) but also with their counterparts in other client organizations and with emerging third-party actors such as labor market intermediaries (Bonet et al, 2013;Lorquet et al, 2018) and quasi unions voicing the concerns of self-employed and freelance workers (Hirsch and Seiner, 2018).…”