Moderator Xu Ben, director and researcher of the theoretical department of this newspaper.
Platform employment has become an important new form of employment.
Moderator: Compared with traditional employment methods, what are the new features of platform employment methods?
Wang Weijin (Director, Management Research Office, Institute of Management and Human Resources, the State Council Development Research Center): With the rapid development of digital economy and digital society, employment on platforms such as take-away riders, couriers, online car drivers, online housekeeping and online anchors has become an important new form of employment, and its scale has grown rapidly. According to "China * * * enjoys economic development report (202 1)" issued by the National Information Center, in 2020, the number of employees in China's platform enterprises will reach 63 1 10,000, with about 84 million * * enjoying economic service providers, an increase of 6 million over the previous year. Take the driver of the network car as an example. In recent years, the business licenses of China's online car driver companies have increased month by month, and the number of online car driver licenses has increased rapidly from 2.545 million in June 2020 to 4.888 million in June 2020. Another example is the catering staff. In 20 18 years, there were only125,000 employees in the catering take-away service nationwide. As of June this year, there were 4.7 million riders registered in Meituan alone.
Employment on the platform is highly inclusive. Employment on the platform, especially those who enjoy the platform, has many fields and jobs, full-time and part-time flexible and inclusive. From the perspective of job requirements, platform employment includes labor-intensive jobs such as take-away riders and network car drivers, as well as knowledge-intensive jobs such as online education and creative planning, which provide employment opportunities for employees with different academic qualifications and skill levels. Take Didi Platform as an example. In recent years, 4 1. 1% full-time drivers come from manufacturing, and 13.6% come from transportation. From the perspective of occupational types, new occupations related to platforms are constantly emerging. From 20 19 to 2022, among the four batches of 56 new occupations issued by the state, platform-related occupations such as digital managers and Internet of Things installation and debugging professionals account for a considerable proportion. Not only that, the platform can also adjust the labor supply in time according to market demand and reduce frictional unemployment. For example, during the epidemic, 35.2% of the riders on Meituan Platform came from factory workers, 3 1.4% came from entrepreneurs or people who started their own small businesses, and 17.8% came from office staff.
The platform is in an advantageous position in employment. An important difference between platform employment and traditional employment is that the platform has become the organizational carrier and mode of employment, and the platform has a dominant position in labor relations by mastering the big data resources and technologies generated by operations. This is reflected in two aspects: first, the advantages of labor rules. The normal operation of the platform needs rules, and registering the platform means accepting the rules of the platform. Take the platform signing a labor agreement with crowdsourcing riders as an example. The platform has the right to decide the provision of labor demand information, distribution service norms, remuneration and reward and punishment rules, social security participation methods, etc. Riders must accept all of them before they can register to take orders, and the negotiation space is limited. The second is the technical advantage of labor deployment. The platform has massive data of consumers and employees, and can rely on big data algorithms and artificial intelligence to continuously optimize employment allocation and improve efficiency. Taking the sales platform as an example, the platform can find the rider with the shortest distance and time through the algorithm, thus prompting the rider to continuously reduce the delivery time.
The average working hours of platform workers are too long. The platform staff represented by express delivery, take-out and online car rental are mainly concentrated in wholesale and retail, accommodation and catering, transportation, warehousing and postal services, all of which have the highest average working hours in China. In 2020, the two industries with the longest average working hours per week for urban employees in China are accommodation and catering, wholesale and retail, which reach 52.6 hours and 50. 1 hour respectively, and the transportation, warehousing and postal services also reach 49.3 hours, which is much higher than the average of 47.0 hours per week for urban employees and even higher than the legal standard working hours of 40 hours per week in China. Moreover, in recent years, the weekly working hours of these industries have shown a rapid growth trend.
Social security of platform employment needs to be solved urgently. From the perspective of social insurance, China's current social insurance is based on the formal labor contract relationship. Platform employment, especially flexible employment, is different from the general labor contract relationship. Employment is mostly self-employed or labor cooperation, and multi-platform simultaneous employment is common, which makes it difficult to meet the conditions for handling social insurance. At present, platform employees can participate in pension and medical insurance through personal payment, but the payment is high, the transfer and connection in different places are difficult, the procedures are complicated, and the actual participation rate of employees with flexible platform is not high. In view of the difficulty of social insurance, platform enterprises generally choose commercial insurance for flexible employees, but the protection is limited.
The legal protection of platform employment is facing an adaptive dilemma. China's standardization of labor relations mainly depends on civil law and labor law. Civil law mainly aims at equal civil subjects and adjusts independent labor such as natural persons hiring domestic workers. The Labor Law regulates the employment of employees and other subordinate leaders of enterprises for workers in a weak position. The rapid development of platform employment makes the current labor legal system face adaptive challenges. Take the employment of selling platforms as an example. Specially send riders to sign labor contracts with the platform, establish formal labor relations, and be clearly protected by labor law. Ask me if I want to work on a platform with complicated labor characteristics, such as crowdsourcing riders. These flexible employees have no formal labor contract relationship and have greater autonomy and flexibility in whether, when and where to work. At the same time, their working environment is more complicated, for example, they need to travel quickly in the streets and lanes, and their labor risk coefficient is higher. Therefore, it is urgent to improve labor laws and regulations, improve the consultation and coordination mechanism of labor relations, improve the protection system of workers' rights and interests, and strengthen the protection of workers' rights and interests in flexible employment and new forms of employment.
Technological progress promotes the transformation of employment mode.
Moderator: The expansion of platform employment scale reflects how the employment pattern in China has changed. How to understand the relationship between economic development, technological progress and changes in employment pattern?
Li (Professor, National Development Research Institute, Peking University): The expansion of platform employment scale is a manifestation of the development of digital economy in the labor market, which reflects the following changes in China's employment pattern.
First, offline work becomes online work. On the one hand, the development of digital industry has created a large number of new online jobs; On the other hand, through the digital transformation of the industry, the employment model of traditional industries has also changed, and the rise of flexible employment in the platform economy is more prominent. Flexible employment mainly takes two forms: "online labor market" and "application-based on-demand work". The former mainly matches supply and demand through the Internet platform and provides remote services online, which is knowledge-intensive, such as crowdsourcing programming, live broadcast with goods, online consultation and so on. The latter mainly matches local supply and demand in real time, mostly belonging to labor-intensive service industries, including online car drivers and take-away riders. Although their actual tasks are done offline, information release, remuneration payment and assessment supervision are all done online.
The second is to change from fixed posts to flexible employment. Globally, more and more young people are getting rid of full-time jobs and turning their attention to flexible employment. It is undoubtedly one of the important reasons for this change that the platform makes use of the advantages of data and algorithms to show high efficiency in the matching of labor supply and demand and the assignment of work tasks. Taking online car rental and take-away delivery as examples, tasks are generated based on platform orders, and the completion of each order is similar to a virtual production line, so the payment method of tasks is more flexible. Its flexibility in working hours meets the job-hunting preferences of a considerable number of workers, especially young people.
The third is to change from a single occupation to multiple employment. Diversified employment under the platform economy includes not only providing the same job content to multiple platforms (such as take-away riders), but also providing different job content to one or more platforms (such as online car drivers also opening online stores to sell goods), and also including people who do part-time jobs while doing traditional jobs (such as employees hitchhiking on their way to and from work). In the case of diversified employment, it is often difficult to distinguish which occupation is the main occupation of workers.
Fourth, the definition of entrepreneurship has become blurred. There are obvious differences between self-employed entrepreneurship and traditional wage labor, but under the platform economy, the boundary between them is no longer clear. Due to the characteristics of the platform connecting merchants, consumers and workers, some entrepreneurs have a strong subordinate relationship to the platform, while some employed workers and employers are weakening. At the same time, a large number of odd jobs reflect the characteristics of self-employment, and their subordinate relationship to the platform is between employment and self-employment. The emergence of diversified non-standard employment forms is difficult to distinguish and measure by traditional labor relations standards.
It is worth noting that the change of employment pattern not only appears in China, but also widely appears in other countries. If the phenomenon of hundreds of millions of migrant workers entering cities is unique to China's labor market, then the emergence of new forms of employment in the digital economy era is a structural change in the global labor market. The reason is closely related to the technological progress in Internet, intelligent manufacturing and cloud computing. For example, the rapid development of the Internet makes communication and coordination between economic entities easier, transaction costs are on the decline, and many production and service processes are decomposed, which leads to the trend of de-corporatization and de-organization. For another example, with the rapid development of cloud computing, R&D and supply chain management of many small and medium-sized enterprises have moved to the cloud. Technological progress has promoted the change of employment demand in many enterprises, or flat reform, or downsizing to increase efficiency, or non-core process outsourcing, resulting in labor dispatch, labor outsourcing, crowdsourcing and other forms of employment, which has triggered the trend of informalization, flexibility and diversification of employment. It can be said that it is precisely because of technological progress that the organizational structure of enterprises has changed and the employment pattern has also changed. The emergence of platform enterprises has accelerated this transformation.
The change of employment mode, along with the change of employment relationship, challenges the management of enterprises. Under the traditional fixed employment relationship, enterprises provide employees with wages and benefits, pay five insurances and one gold, and employees only serve one enterprise. When the fixed employment relationship is divided, under the short-term, flexible and diversified employment relationship, enterprises are facing many new situations and problems in maintaining the quality of employees and ensuring the welfare of employees. Whether we can change our ideas in time and innovate in management and organization is related to the sustainable development of enterprises in China in the era of digital economy.
The change of employment pattern also challenges the government's public service. For example, the existing public services such as industrial injury insurance, unemployment insurance and employment training are mainly provided based on the fact that workers have fixed employment units. When the "unit system" public service system meets a large number of "non-unit system" new forms of employment, the protection of workers' rights and interests has become a focus. It is urgent to make corresponding adjustments in the supporting system, so that the public service system can effectively cover workers with flexible employment and new forms of employment, protect workers' rights and interests, and solve the problem of equalization of public services, which is also an important prerequisite for China to achieve inclusive growth in the digital economy era.
Platform employment is in the ascendant in the world.
Moderator: The platform economy is developing rapidly in the world, so what are the characteristics of platform employment in other countries?
Fang (Researcher, Institute of Social Development Strategy, China Academy of Social Sciences, Secretary-General, World Social Security Research Center): An obvious trend of global economic transformation is the rise of digital economy. A series of Internet information technologies, such as big data, artificial intelligence, cloud computing and blockchain, have widely penetrated into all aspects of production and life, and triggered changes in employment methods. Different from the traditional labor contract and full-time employment mode, various non-standardized employment forms are constantly emerging under the platform economy, which has cultivated a large number of employment opportunities and promoted the increase of jobs.
According to the statistics of the United Nations Telecommunication Association, in 20021year, 63% of the global population were Internet users. E-commerce platform mainly uses Internet technology to provide online and offline services for customers. As early as the 1990s, some e-commerce platforms began to appear in North American countries, outsourcing production and services to some low-income countries in the southern hemisphere. The early platform mainly adopted crowdsourcing service business model. For example, Elance, an American company, was established in 1999 to provide online job search services for freelancers around the world. In 20 15, it merged with ODesk to form Upwork Company, and now it has developed into one of the largest and most standardized recruitment platforms in the world, with more than 5 million corporate customers. 2 1 century, the online platform of crowdsourcing gradually emerged, and a large number of online service platforms for taxis and express delivery began to appear, which were quickly accepted by users because of their convenience and price.
According to the data of the International Labor Organization, the number of global e-commerce platforms has increased more than five times since 20 10. In 20021year, there were nearly 800 large-scale e-commerce platforms in the world, and their services included online services and on-site services. The rapid growth of e-commerce platform has promoted the development of digital industry. In 20021year, the global platform economic investment reached11900 million yuan, mainly concentrated in the taxi and express delivery industries, and generated operating income of 52 billion dollars that year. In 20 18, the global platform economic output value was142 billion USD, and it is expected to increase to 31160 billion USD by 2023.
There are two main types of employment relationships on digital platforms. One is the staff directly employed by the platform, that is, internal employment; The other is the employment opportunities provided by the platform as an intermediary, that is, the indirect employment driven by the platform. For example, Upwork Company mentioned above has more than 5.7 million full-time employees and more than 65,438+200,000 part-time employees worldwide. Online service platforms are mostly small and medium-sized enterprises, and the number of direct employees is less than 50. Uber is the world's largest taxi platform company, with nearly 27,000 employees, mainly lawyers, software engineers and marketers. In the express delivery industry, employees of big companies such as Meituan, DeliveryHero (Germany), Swiggy (India) and Hungry are also above 1000.
The United States is the country with the largest scale of platform employment among developed economies, and about 22% of the working population participates in some form of platform economy, especially in areas with developed Internet and service industries such as Florida and California, where platforms have become the main force to absorb new jobs. It is estimated that by 2023, the number of people participating in platform employment in the United States will reach 78 million. In the UK, during the period from 20 16 to 202 1, the number of employees in the express delivery industry increased by 350%, the domestic service industry increased by 166%, the remote online service increased by 100%, and 15% of the workers participated in the platform work at least once a week.
Some emerging economies, including China, India, Indonesia, Brazil and some Southeast Asian countries, have made rapid progress in economic transformation in recent years, and platform employment has become a new growth point. It is estimated that the number of freelancers under the global digital platform is increasing at the rate of 15% every year. Since the outbreak of the epidemic in COVID-19, affected by the economic and employment situation, the work tasks have been further transferred to remote home office and online services, and the number of employees on online registration platform has further increased, which has become an effective way to alleviate the unemployment pressure in various countries.
From the perspective of personnel distribution, platform employment is mainly concentrated in young people, low-income people and freelancers. The European Commission divides the tasks of the platform into 27 categories, and the complexity of each category is quite different. Generally speaking, the network service platform requires higher quality of employees, while those who are engaged in door-to-door services (including domestic service, take-away food delivery and online car service, etc.). ) The skill level is low. From the perspective of income, the average income of platform employees is higher than that of ordinary jobs. In subsidy income, a large number of platform practitioners work part-time to earn extra wages, and nearly half of the respondents think that "being free to arrange working hours" is the most important factor to participate in platform work. At the same time, platform employment also encounters some unavoidable problems, such as the difficulty in identifying the identity of workers, unclear employment relationship, poor working environment, irregular employment, lack of labor contract and labor rights protection, and loss of state tax revenue. Faced with these challenges, countries have made active explorations in strengthening labor legislation, employment supervision and protection of labor rights and interests, and introduced measures to standardize the development of platform economy.
Generally speaking, the development momentum of platform employment is in the ascendant, which will definitely have a great impact on the future business model and job market. Faced with this new thing, the world needs to work together to form * * * knowledge in optimizing governance and bring platform employment into a healthier and sustainable development path.
Improve the protection of the rights and interests of platform workers.
Moderator: While promoting employment, the platform economy has also brought new challenges to the protection of the rights and interests of relevant workers. How to promote the more standardized development of platform employment in the next step?
Chen Yun (Director, Employment and Entrepreneurship Office, Chinese Academy of Labor and Social Security): The platform economy has played an irreplaceable role in stabilizing and promoting employment and entrepreneurship. It is the consistent policy of the party and the government to let all workers enjoy the fruits of reform and development.
How to make the platform economy develop healthily and safeguard the labor security rights and interests of all kinds of platform employees is related to achieving high-quality full employment, fairness, justice, harmony and stability. In 20021year, Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security and other eight departments jointly issued the Guiding Opinions on Safeguarding the Labor Security Rights and Interests of Workers in New Employment Forms, which strengthened the protection of the labor rights and interests of platform employees in many aspects and achieved good results and social repercussions. However, platform employment has many characteristics, such as a large number of people, complex personnel types, flexible employment methods, diverse relationship subjects and great differences in workers' rights and interests, and its labor rights protection still faces many new situations and problems.
To implement the spirit of the 20th Party Congress, support and standardize the development of new forms of employment, and strengthen the protection of workers' rights and interests in flexible employment and new forms of employment, it is necessary for all parties to strengthen collaborative governance, continue to improve relevant laws and regulations, innovate system settings, optimize policy operating environment and mechanism, further increase protection efforts, strengthen protection measures, and enhance protection capacity and level.
First, promote the standardization and sustainable development of the platform economy and lay a solid foundation for the employment and rights protection of workers. Comply with the development wave of digital economy, adhere to the integration of digital and real, enlarge and strengthen a number of digital platforms or leading enterprises in the industry, play their role of innovation, amplification, superposition and multiplication, and create more new employment opportunities and jobs. Guide all kinds of platform enterprises to establish sustainable business and profit models, improve the platform development level, avoid taking the old road of "low human cost" development, avoid falling into the trap of "low human capital development" from "low human cost advantage", adhere to the business development and human resource strategy of "high quality employment" and promote "high quality development". While promoting the sustainable development of platform enterprises, it is necessary to realize the sustainability of employment opportunities, career and support ability of platform employees.
The second is to strengthen collaborative governance. It is necessary to strengthen government management and industry norms and improve the platform governance mechanism under the principles of inclusiveness, prudence and standardization. Platform enterprises should adhere to the development direction of improving the level of science and technology, establish a sense of social responsibility, consciously abide by the law, actively fulfill their employment responsibilities, standardize business management behaviors, and avoid non-business risks. Give play to the role of trade unions, industry associations and other organizations to promote self-discipline of the industry and its employees. Give full play to the subjective initiative of employees, clarify the role of employees in corporate governance, and exercise the right to democratic participation. Improve the consultation and coordination mechanism, and listen to the opinions and suggestions of employee representatives and trade unions when formulating institutional rules and platform algorithms for important issues such as labor remuneration, labor process management, labor time and labor intensity, and smooth the channels for complaints and reports.
The third is to strengthen policy supply and increase the systematicness, inclusiveness and accessibility of policies. Strengthen the top-level design and timely revise and improve the employment promotion law, labor contract law and other relevant laws. Study and formulate relevant labor standards such as wages and working hours, and establish basic protection standards for labor rights and interests. We will improve the social security system for flexible employees and effectively implement that flexible employees can participate in endowment insurance and medical insurance in their places of employment without household registration restrictions. Evaluate and study the pilot effect of occupational injury protection for employees in new formats such as take-away, timely delivery and freight transportation in the same city, and improve and promote it in an orderly manner. Guide and support new forms of employment that are not fully in line with labor relations to participate in corresponding social insurance according to their own conditions. Expand the coverage of unemployment insurance and study and explore the inclusion of all kinds of flexible employees. Innovate flexible social security payment methods and explore social security payment services for platform employees.
The fourth is to further clarify the rights, responsibilities and interests of multiple subjects. Clarify the legal and institutional relationships of different departments and fields involved in various new forms of employment, and clarify the rights, responsibilities and interests of all parties to various labor security rights and interests. Platform enterprises meet the conditions of establishing labor relations, or do not completely meet the conditions of establishing labor relations, but enterprises that manage laborers shall bear corresponding responsibilities for protecting laborers' rights and interests; For cooperative employment methods such as labor dispatch and outsourcing, platform enterprises should bear their respective employment responsibilities with cooperative enterprises according to law. Improve the employment regulations for flexible employees on the platform, encourage enterprises to innovate management methods, perform relevant contracts or demonstration agreements as soon as possible when labor contracts cannot be signed, and make agreements on working hours, work injury identification and labor disputes in time.
The fifth is to innovate and improve the working mechanism of protecting the rights and interests of platform employees and strengthen the construction of service system. Strengthen labor security supervision, innovate the means and methods of supervision and supervision, urge enterprises to implement the responsibility of protecting workers' rights and interests, and promote the governance of outstanding problems such as unpaid labor remuneration and illegal overtime. Use administrative guidance and issue guidance opinions on typical judicial cases. To guide relevant responsible parties and subjects to effectively implement the requirements of laws and regulations. Accelerate the construction of service outlets such as odd jobs post stations and workers post stations, improve the urban comprehensive service network, and provide platform workers with convenient working life such as policy consultation, labor dispute contradiction mediation, employment information docking, and temporary rest after work.