PhD Student Laura Lam has written a guest post for Platform Labor, an ERC-funded research project that aims to determine how digital platforms are transforming the organization of labor, livelihood, and governance in cities marked by eroding welfare systems:
"I am part of a research team along with Dr. Anna Triandafyllidou, Canada Excellence Research Chair in Migration and Integration at Ryerson University, conducting an inductive, qualitative study through semi-structured interviews with migrants in Canada who are engaged in platform work 1. The project started in early spring of 2020, against the backdrop of the global pandemic. Canada’s labor market is fueled by migrants, yet we found that there was a dearth of research specifically focused on migrants engaged in the platform economy. We found that platform work increasingly blurs the line between what is considered a low-income, contingent occupation, and what is believed to be a purely transitional way of making money that promises future rewards. It is also seen as part of the Canadian settlement experience."