Migration,Advanced Digital Technologies,and the Future of Work

Abstract

Advanced digital technologies are transforming the way we work, connect, participate, and even live. Their impact is most visible in the migration field where they facilitate decoupling the place of work and the place of residence, potentially leading to whole new opportunities and challenges. Today, digital nomads can travel while they work, while labor migrants, particularly those with temporary status, may find themselves trapped in digital platform work. Contributions to this special Issue shed light on these seemingly opposed phenomena of digital nomadism and migrant worker engagement in digital platforms. This introductory paper offers a critical review of the notion of quality of work, arguing that its contours have been fundamentally shifting in recent times. Empirical insights arising from research on digital platforms (particularly immigrant employment in those) and work on digital nomadism reveal new elements valued by migrant and digital nomad workers. This paper and the other contributions included in this special issue point to the ambivalence of these new configurations, which create vulnerable workers but also agentic subjects who seek to negotiate better career aspirations, whether through digital nomadism or engagement in digital platform work.

Introduction

For most high-income countries migration remains an important factor for addressing skill and labor force shortages. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted immigrants’ significant social and economic contributions, providing essential services in health, agri-food, and retail sectors. It has also magnified systemic labor market challenges that migrant workers face (poor working conditions, deskilling, under-employment) and social inequities (discrimination, health and social care barriers) that produce health disparities (Triandafyllidou and Yeoh 2023).

The pandemic has also accelerated and intensified the role of advanced digital technologies (ADT) in providing services (including, for instance, employment orientation or language classes), organizing work (such as base-skilled jobs with digital platforms, or digital onboarding at work), and facilitating social networks (including friends, community groups, and other informal organizations) and political participation across all societal levels.

New digital technologies have the potential to support labor market integration, improve access to information, give more autonomy and make migrant workers more resilient. However, these same technologies may widen old or create new inequities alongside not only immigration status but also race, ethnicity, class, religion, gender and sexual identity, age, education, language, place of residence, profession (Gloufsios 2018; Bircan and Korkmaz 2021; Madianou 2021). Digital literacy, language skills, access to high-quality Internet, and smart devices differ significantly among different population groups, while ADT and related algorithms (for service provision or recruitment, for instance) incorporate past data usage, and risk perpetuating negative biases (Schreurs, Quan-Haase, and Martin 2017).

ADTs are shaping both the future of work and the future of migration in two major ways. On one hand, they may create new opportunities for remote work, shifting the way in which global talent is recruited, selected, and managed, and opening up opportunities of remote work to people located in far away places. They may thus act as a sort of equalizer of opportunity or as a lever for achieving a better work–life balance. On the other hand, such technologies may create and exacerbate precarious and atypical working conditions, including those presented by digital platforms on the gig-work economy (such as Uber, Skipthedishes, Taskrabbit or Bookjane, only to name a few). The picture is quite complex, as recent research has shown that jobs in the platform economy may provide a point of entry for new immigrants and that immigrant earnings gaps among non-standard or contingent workers are smaller than those among workers in standard jobs (Lam and Triandafyllidou 2021, 2022). Whether these jobs are a bridge to upward mobility particularly for migrant workers, however is a question that needs to be answered with further analysis.

In other words, ADTs may give rise to diametrically-opposed phenomena within the broader field of labor migration. They may lead people to decouple their residence from their work, keeping the work stable but the person moving between places (notably becoming a voluntary “digital nomad”). But they may also lead to the opposite situation, where migrants who establish themselves at a new place, find local work that is though mediated by a technology app, hence creating again a disconnect between place of residence and the place of work. The app becomes the (virtual) workplace while work is performed locally by a recently arrived migrant worker.

This Special Issue investigates precisely these two diametrically-opposed facets — or actually these two sides of the same coin — of the simultaneous transformation of technology, migration and work, digital nomads and migrant workers engaged in digital platform work. Contributions to this Special Issue investigate new processes of decoupling work from residency or place, and economic from social and political integration. This introductory paper starts with a discussion on how the notion of quality of work has been changing in the twenty-first century and how it is being reconfigured through the proliferation of digital platforms that often rely on migrant workers to provide services. It then discusses the growing phenomenon of digital nomads, as another type of mobility and digital technology configuration that shapes new forms of migration and related understandings of quality of work, which may be deceitful (see also Toivainen in this Special Issue). The paper concludes with an overview of the contents of this special issue.

Changing Configurations of Quality of Work and the Rise of the Digital Platform Economy

Understanding how ADTs interact with migration and mobility and ultimately reshape the very nature of work requires us first to reconsider what does quality of work means today. In fact, quality of work (or quality of employment) is a difficult concept to pin down and measure (Burchell et al. 2014). It includes objective features of the work (including task variety, autonomy and feedback in performing tasks, and skill utilization), objective features of the employment relationship (like income, contractual status, benefits, training opportunities, tenure and career prospects, workplace relations) and subjective features related more to the worker and their expectations, including job satisfaction, perceived quality of job and perceived work–life balance. We need also to note that these subjective features are influenced by the adaptation capacity of individuals when faced with unfavourable working conditions, which can shape their evaluation of the quality of their employment.

There have been many efforts to operationalize and measure quality of work and quality of employment internationally during the last 25 years partly as a response to changes in the nature of work and work organization through de- and post-industrialization trends and inequalities among developing and developed countries. Among these efforts, the most notable are the concept of decent work launched by the International Labour Organization (ILO) in 1999 (ILO 2015), and the EU Laeken indicators and their follow up (Burchell et al. 2014; Steffgen, Sischka and Fernandez de Henestrosa 2020). The operational definition used by StatsCanada (Chen and Mehdi 2019) includes several of the features outlined above notably: income and benefits, career prospects, work intensity, working-time quality, skills and discretion, and social environment. Since 2020, there has been increased attention to how workers have evaluated the quality of their employment during the pandemic emergency (Statistics Canada 2021), pointing to new elements in the definition of decent work. Such elements include not only increased concerns about health and safety or mental health pressures, but also appreciation (for those who worked remotely) of not having to commute to work every day or having flexible timetables combining work with care obligations.

In parallel to these considerations, recent years and particularly the pandemic period have been marked by a rise of employment in the gig economy, particularly through digital labor platforms which help meet demand in ride hailing (Uber, Lyft), food delivery (Uber Eats, Skip the Dishes), delivery of all sorts of goods (companies serving Amazon and similar), delivery of cleaning or repair services (Taskrabbit) or even delivery of cleaning and care services (BookJane, or Care.com) (Farrell, Greig and Hamoudi 2018; Jeon, Liu and Ostrovsky 2019; Ziegler et al. 2020). While demand for such services has existed before the pandemic, it reached a sudden peak during the period 2020–2022, while it has decreased since that time, as life went back to normal.

Employment in the gig economy could be seen as diametrically opposed to mainstream definitions of quality work as it is insecure, offers unstable income, no benefits, takes place in isolation, and includes no training opportunities or career prospects (De Stefano 2016, 2017; Van Doorn 2017; Goods, Veen, and Barratt 2019). In addition, most (but not all) of the services provided in the gig economy require a basic level of skills and presumably offer little autonomy, creativity or skill utilization. And yet recent research (Lam and Triandafyllidou 2021, 2022) on migrant workers in the gig economy has shown that such poor quality work can be seen as preferable or of good quality because of its special characteristics: extreme flexibility in terms of hours worked and when they are worked; autonomy and no hierarchy — no boss; low threshold for starting and avoidance of bureaucratic hurdles; comparatively better paid than entry level jobs in the catering or retail sector. Such work can be seen as a stepping stone for newcomers as they set their foot in the labor market, seeking to retrain, pass exams or create networks that would help them find a suitable (high quality) job in their profession. At the same time, these feelings of autonomy and this being a “stepping stone” turn out for many to be a trap as they find themselves under the control of platforms, making only just enough money to survive, and trapped in those jobs without the possibility of upward mobility (Liu and Renzy in this Special Issue, Lam and Triandafyllidou 2022).

Clearly the factors pushing migrants to engage in digital platform work are numerous and complex and range from the general structural features of post-industrial labor markets to the discrimination and deskilling experiences of newcomers in most migrant-receiving countries (Girard and Bauder 2007; Ku et al. 2019; Cornelissen and Turcotte 2020; Lamb, Banerjee, and Verma 2021; Ellis and Triandafyllidou 2023; Isaakyan et al. 2023). Platforms and migrant workers have been shown to depend on one another for survival (Katta et al. 2024). Such factors also relate to the overall rise of the gig economy in urban centres (Graham 2020; Gregory and Maldonado 2020) and the ways in which a post-industrial digital economy creates those new employment relations (Zwick 2018; Richardson 2020), new types of hyper-value through the collection and analysis of data gathered automatically by platform workers and their customers (Van Doorn and Badger 2020).

But, of course, migrants are a heterogeneous category, including different ethnic and racial categories, different class, gender and status characteristics (see also Schor et al. 2020). For many migrant and non-migrant workers, engagement in digital platforms emerges as a result of labor market barriers they face, within highly competitive (mostly urban) labor markets that allow for the state and employers to continually exploit workers (Sharma 2020). Facing significant hurdles in their entry into quality jobs, digital platforms offer to migrant workers alternative pathways of employment. However, what appears as an opportunity often leads to what McMillan Cottom (2020) has called “platform capture” within a socio-political regime that transforms workers to independent contractors (McMillan Cottom 2020), while simultaneously transforming the notion of job and worker. When the structures, policies and practices of a nation-state is seen to grant more access to capital than to migrants, platform labor is enabled to thrive, reorganize and expand (Sharma 2020, 22).

Platform work is inextricably intertwined with unequal power relations that are highly racialized and ethnicized and historically traceable to exploitative and exclusionary practices of the state (Zhou 2022; Ray 2024). These relations are not only exploitative but also function to contain and manage migrants’ belonging and subsequently, their labor (Sharma 2020). A secure migration status does not seem to suffice to overcome or bypass exploitative “non-job” work arrangements. Rather, platform work comes to be modelled on the basis of pre-existing inequalities that relate both to being foreign-born or foreigner but also to coming from a country of the “global South” (Lam and Triandafyllidou 2022). Racial capitalism acts as hand in glove with new forms of platform capitalism reproducing inequality and exploitation (Gebrial 2022). The intermediary of the digital platform and algorithmic control renders these mechanisms less palpable or visible, masked in providing flexibility and control as compared to a low-waged, entry-level exploitative job in a large company.

It is crucial to delve deeper in to the subjective experiences and sensemaking of gig economy workers (Meijerink and Keegan 2019; Peticca-Harris, DeGama and Ravishankar 2020) and their capacity for resilience and resistance (Ravenelle 2019; Manolchev 2020). Platform work emerges as a symptom of a segmented labor market — migrants, though, are neither passive nor hopeless victims of exploitation. They negotiate their options not only figuratively (see Peticca-Harris, DeGama, and Ravishankar 2020) but also in practice by seeking to use (rather than only be used by) the platform economy. Recent research has shown a variety of objective and subjective experiences. Working with digital platforms may be an opportunity, for those young and single going through a specific phase of their lives, such as international students (Lam and Triandafyllidou 2021, Mathurin et al. in this Special Issue), or highly-skilled young adults exploring alternatives through international mobility (see Stingl and Orth in this Special Issue). Though their legal status and employment situation may seem precarious, research shows that they evaluate their platform work rather positively. They reap the benefits of flexibility and low barriers while they manage to tame the uncertainty and insecurity of the work.

This is also the case for those who use platform work as a chance for added income and livelihood security when they have a main salaried job (Mathurin et al. in this Special Issue, Khan et al. 2023). This added income that platform work generates may make it also a stepping-stone or temporary anchor to plan ahead, deal with family care responsibilities (e.g., young children), support a transition phase in one's (or in one's spouse's) career. The situation is different for those migrant workers who take up platform work because this is the only option available to them, or those in the impasse pathway for whom platforms are a forced choice as they face deskilling and underemployment. Research in this volume (Mathurin et al. in this special issue) as well as by Khan et al. (2023) also shows that the feeling of insecurity and the role of platform work as supplemental income is different among non-migrant or settled migrant workers versus those that are recent arrivals (see also James Holtum et al. 2021). The latter express much higher feelings of uncertainty and dependence on the supplemental income of the platform.

Platform work is often promoted as offering autonomy and control, yet researchers have observed that it has simply shifted the characteristics of poor quality work to inadequate and fragmented working conditions (Macdonald, Bentham, and Malone 2018). While migrant workers engaged in digital platforms frequently emphasize feelings of freedom and autonomy (Lam and Triandafyllidou 2022), these are often coupled with a high awareness of algorithmic exploitation (Iazzolino et al. in this Special Issue). Given the precarious nature of platform work, “flexibility” is not for the benefit of workers but disproportionately benefits platform companies (Cano, Espelt, and Morell 2021). Platform work is characterized by “compulsion by necessity” because there is no real acceptable alternative (Lewis et al. 2015).

Much existing research on platform-based work is focused on popular, visible areas of work that are prominently featured within city infrastructures, such as in the food courier or logistic sectors. Yet other forms of platform work exists behind closed doors, where informal and unregulated conditions might take place, such as care and domestic work (Ticona and Mateescu 2018). If driving for Uber is a stepping-stone toward greater economic integration (Lam and Triandafyllidou 2022), digital care platforms for care workers can become an intermediary that seems — in theory — tailored specifically to their needs to find work in their field of training (Triandafyllidou and Lam 2024).

Contributions to this special issue delve deeper into these questions with a view of understanding how different types and statues of migration interact with work in digital platforms and how are these negotiated by migrant workers in different platform sectors and in a variety of national policy contexts.

Placeless Work?

ADTs have not only facilitated connections and collaborations but have also made possible a sort of “virtual mobility” through online learning and telecommuting. The process of adopting these new ways of interacting with one another has particularly accelerated because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The term “saturated mobility” used in the natural sciences is an apt descriptor of the growing number of people — especially younger generations more at ease with digital technology — who may be extremely virtually mobile but physically stay put. At the same time, we may find people who travel the world but are punctually virtually present in a geographically distant office.

The notion of remote work has gained popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic as offices closed and their employees shifted to working from home during the lockdowns. The prolongation of this situation led many families to move to places other than their habitual residence, whether within the same country but outside urban centers, or in some cases abroad to reunite with family and loved ones (in the case of transnational families) or in search of a more pleasant lifestyle. The expansion of remote work to many service industries and to people who were paid employees rather than freelance professionals has given rise to a certain interest in digital nomadism (Hooper and Benton 2022; OECD 2022; Dreher and Triandafyllidou 2023, KC and Triandafyllidou in this Special Issue), a vision that people could adopt a mobile lifestyle in search of leisure while working (so the adage goes) from a beach or from a cabin in the woods, and thus achieving a better work–life balance.

Most literature focuses on digital nomadism as a combination of work and lifestyle considerations (e.g., Reichenberger 2018; Cook 2020; Green 2020). Hannonen, Quintana and Lehto (2023) extend this dichotomy by suggesting that digital nomadism consists of five interrelated phenomena: lifestyle, work, tourism, digital/online, social. Orel (2023) reflects on the complexity of digital nomadism and the challenges in developing a singular comprehensive definition in a review of the various definitions produced for a special issue on the topic in World Leisure Studies (Orel 2023).

One of the most comprehensive definitions and conceptual frameworks comes from Cook (2023). In a review of the literature that situates digital nomadism in the post-pandemic period in which remote work has become a mainstream phenomenon, Cook (2023, 259) defines digital nomads as those who “use digital technologies to work remotely, they have the ability to work and travel simultaneously, have autonomy over frequency and choice of location, and visit at least three locations a year that are not their own or a friend's or family home.” This definition is complemented by six key digital nomad attributes: “(1) frequency and autonomy of mobility; (2) homebase practices; (3) domestic versus transnational travel; (4) legal legitimacy; (5) work–life integration versus work–life balance and (6) coworking space usage” (Cook 2023, 259). While this definition offers a useful operational construct for defining who is a digital nomad, it does not engage in a critical way with the assumption that these nomads are young, white, highly educated, and hold a strong passport that enables their seamless mobility (Mancinelli and Germann Molz 2024).

There is an unspoken assumption in works on digital nomadism that the person in question is young, white, highly educated and holds a strong passport that enables their seamless mobility (Thompson 2018, 7–14). Despite anecdotal evidence of digital nomad participants from East Asia (primarily South Korea and Japan) and the Global South, the majority of these nomads are from the United States, Canada, Europe or Australia. The most acknowledged demographic of digital nomads is their country of origin, often discussed using the terminology of strong passport countries (Thompson 2018; Cook 2020; Wang et al. 2020). The strength of a passport refers to the number of countries that one can visit without requiring a visa. Interestingly, many digital nomads reject national attachments and identify as “citizens of the world” yet are highly dependent on their citizenship and passport to practice their lifestyle choices (Cook 2020).

Looking more closely into the freedoms involved in digital nomadism, we realize that there are both lights and shadows. Professional freedoms involve control over the selection and structure of work (see also Schlagwein 2018). This is especially relevant for digital nomads engaged in freelance or entrepreneurial activities. Spatial freedom primarily refers to location independence and personal freedom concerns the focus on self-development and a rebalancing of life priorities. These latter two examples of freedom suggest that in some ways, the motivations of digital nomads parallel those of other kinds of lifestyle migrants (Ferriss 2011; Korpela 2020). Some scholars question the reality of the professional freedom highlighted by Reichenberger's (2018) work. They argue that digital nomads struggle with work life balance and rely on a variety of external or self-imposed disciplining practices to productivity (Cook 2020; Toivainen in this Special Issue) and point out that digital nomadism is akin to precarious gig work. The motivation for engaging in this lifestyle is often to gain some financial stability in more affordable locations (Thompson 2021).

Digital nomadism has recently attracted attention also as the antidote to immigration visa bottlenecks. Anecdotal evidence suggests that talented engineers and managers in high demand in knowledge economies may opt for staying in their country of origin close to friends and extended family, enjoying a more affordable cost of living while employed remotely by companies abroad. The rumour has it that in some cases transactions in cryptocurrencies facilitate this type of digital nomadism and offer ways to avoid taxation (Radocchia 2019).

At the same time, a range of digital nomad visas (DNVs) have been emerging in countries around the world (Hooper and Benton 2022; OECD 2022) which seek to attract these high-level nomad professionals. Several countries have sought to position themselves as digital nomad destinations through the introduction of DNV programs in the post-2020 period. Several studies have documented the emergence of these visas since the first was officially launched by Estonia in 2020 (Hooper and Benton 2022; Sánchez-Vergara, Orel and Capdevila 2023; Mancinelli and Germann Molz 2024). KC and Triandafyllidou, in this special issue note that the most recent were launched in Colombia and Canada in spring and summer 2023 respective. These visa programs present a number of common features of which most important is the requirement that the applicant can demonstrate current employment and an expectation of income from abroad and is not allowed to work locally (Dreher and Triandafyllidou 2023; KC and Triandafyllidou in this special issue).

This phenomenon raises important policy and analytical questions with regard to the connection between place of work and place of residence which defy our current understandings or classifications of employment, labor migration as well as of socio-economic transnationalism (see also Zikic et al. in this Special Issue). Raising important economic and welfare concerns with regard to the decoupling of income, taxation, residence, and access to services (particularly health), it also touches upon the very essence of the social contract. For a digital nomad a passport is necessary — and actually a “strong passport” preferably that allows for smooth mobility across borders — but the very mode of life of digital nomadism refutes the notion of citizenship and nationalism advocating for a more cosmopolitan living. It may be argued that digital nomads of today are the working holiday makers of a few years back albeit there is a fundamental difference as working holiday makers are locally employed while digital nomads are not.

Contributions to this Special Issue interrogate the changing relationship between place of residence and work, highlighting the advantages and disadvantages of digital nomadism and pointing to the role of both governments and intermediaries in seeking to regulate this new and expanding, even if still niche, type of human mobility.

Contents of this Issue

This Special Issue is organized into two sections. The first section focuses on the realities of digital nomadism particularly in the aftermath of the pandemic emergency, investigating how digital nomadism phenomena change the meaning of work and leisure through the opportunities offered by ADT (Toivanen; Willment; and Zikic, Zupic and Cerne, in this Special Issue). KC and Triandafyllidou, on the other hand, investigate digital nomadism from a policy perspective discussing the motivations behind the disproportionate emergence of DNVs during the last couple of years.

Mari Toivanen's paper on The Freedom Paradox: Meanings and Configurations of Digital Nomadic Work, explores the modalities and meanings of nomadic work as narrated by digital nomads. The study is based on ethnographic fieldwork and qualitative interviews with twenty digital nomads in Mallorca, Spain (2021–2022) including observation in co-working and co-living spaces, networking meetings and informal get-togethers. Toivanen explores the connections between alternative work modalities of digital nomads and their relationship with what is considered as traditional nine-to-five office work and points to the contradictions between the observed realities and the ways in which these are narrated by digital nomads. Her findings highlight that while digital nomads express a strong anti-office sentiment and narrate on nomadic work as a way to escape the “traditional office jobs,” they end up “mimicking” certain aspects of office-based work when arranging nomadic work practices. Overall, the paper analyzes the spatial, temporal and material modalities of “digital nomadic work” with a view to contributing to our understanding of the future of work and human (physical and digital) mobility. The paper points to the material and performative aspects of digital nomadism beyond its spatial and temporal dimensions.

Nina Willment, on the other hand, focuses on a particular sub-category of digital nomads, notably the travel bloggers. The paper, entitled, Travel Bloggers as “Digital Nomads”–How Can Understanding This Lifestyle Migration Help us to Think About the Future of Work, Migration and Technology? is based on extensive fieldwork with nineteen British travel bloggers as distinctive examples of digital nomads, involved in unique forms of lifestyle migration. Travel bloggers engage into a very special type of digital nomadism as their lifestyle is the object of their work, which helps them earn a living while traveling. Unsurprisingly, Willment finds that travel bloggers encounter “frictions” associated with their lifestyle of travelling and digital work, including mental health struggles, related to overwork and uncertainty related to the digital platforms. At the same time, these informants tend to be agnostic about the impact of their privileged migratory lifestyle on other migrants or communities. The paper concludes by pondering on what travel blogging as a form of lifestyle migration reveals about the relationship between the future of work, digital technologies and migration.

Zikic, Zupic, and Cerne in their paper entitled Digital Nomads in Conversation: Reddit-based Analysis and the Future of Nomadic versus Migrant Career Journeys examine digital nomadism through the lens of the Intelligent Careers framework and compare this emerging career form with more traditional migrant careers. The paper adopts a quantitative approach using a probabilistic topic modeling to analyze 66,601 Reddit posts from the DigitalNomad subreddit to uncover insights into digital nomads’ career management strategies. Discussions are analyzed on the basis of the the three competencies of the Intelligent Careers framework: knowing-why (motivations and aspirations), knowing-how (skills and adaptability), and knowing-whom (networks and social capital). The findings highlight that most of the conversations concerned practical aspects of nomadic life (knowing-how), differentiating their narrative from the more permanent and often structural hurdles that migrants typically face. Discussions on the knowing-why, though, point to the integration of work and leisure as a significant motivator, while at the same time debating the loss of “home.” The knowing-whom conversations reveal digital nomads’ reliance on online and offline networks for support and work opportunities, showcasing the role of digital platforms in fostering community and collaboration among nomads and revealing strategies for maintaining personal relationships and friendships across boundaries. The paper points to important similarities and differences between digital nomadism and labor migration as some cost benefit calculations are similar, but the type of challenges and reflections are different — given the transient nature of the digital nomad mobility.

In response to these reflections, Hari KC and Anna Triandafyllidou in their paper entitled Digital Nomad Visas: a Migration or Tourism Policy? questions the recent increase in DNV programs around the world. Based on the review of policy documents, laws, other grey materials and interviews with policymakers and digital nomads as well as intermediaries like agencies facilitating travel, accommodation, work permit and health coverage arrangements, this paper assesses critically the aims and outcomes of these policies. The paper discusses the intertwining of migration and mobility policies on one hand, with economic development policies seeking to attract affluent individuals, young investors or simply tourists. It also analyzes the role of digital technologies in making these realities possible for individuals, intermediaries, and states. Adopting a critical lens, the paper discusses the emergence of a post-industrial concept of work and leisure and the related understanding of a socio-economic development model where both are based on the geographic decoupling and digital connection of work and residence.

The second section of this Special Issue focuses on the intersection between migration policies and the digital platforms’ gig economy dynamics. Starting with an overview of migrant engagement in the gig economy and particularly in digital platforms (Liu and Renzy), contributions to this Special Issue investigate not only how migration status influences the experiences of migrant workers in the digital platform economy (Stingl and Orth; Mathurin, Lam, Al Alaoui and Triandafyllidou) but also how migration policies may be a crucial factor helping digital platforms to thrive (particularly Stingl and Orth, and Iazzolino, Celoria and Varesio).

Cathy Yang Liu and Rory Renzy in their paper Good Jobs or Bad Jobs? Immigrant Workers in the Gig Economy offer a broader overview of the intersections between online platforms or gig work and the ways in which these transform our understanding of quality of work. Liu and Renzy acknowledge that the quality of work is a multi-dimensional concept that goes beyond earnings. Kalleberg (2011) discussed polarized and precarious employment in the framework of good jobs and bad jobs which includes control over work schedule, content and duration, stability, safety, benefits and insurance, as well as career advancement opportunities. Using a newly released survey in the United States that is nationally representative, notably the EPOP (Entrepreneurship in Population) dataset of 2022, the study finds that about a quarter of immigrant workers and native-born workers participated in the gig economy to different extents. In terms of job quality, gig workers tend to work longer hours and have significantly less fringe benefits, suggesting a double disadvantage. However, they also tend to view job prospects positively and have higher entrepreneurial aspirations which may point to platform work being experienced as a transitional moment that is instrumental to further careern plans. This finding invites for reflection as well as further exploration — from both policy and theoretical perspectives.

Looking at the digital platform work experiences of recent and settled migrants as well as non-migrants, in the paper entitled A fine balance: Exploring job quality in platform work between migrants and non-migrants, Mathurin, Lam, Al Alaoui and Triandafyllidou shed light on the intersection between migration status, labor market integration and digital platform work. The study analyzes how migrants and non-migrants perceive quality of work and navigate the options available to them. More specifically, the paper explores how migrants and non-migrants use internal gauge of control and flexiblity in shaping how they make sense of the quality of such work. Based on a critical review of the opportunities and constraints offered by digital platform work, and reviewing how quality of work is being redefined in this context, the study shows that quality of work is interpreted as regaining control over one's life: whether this involves meeting urgent needs, satisfying goals and aspirations, or overall feeling of control over one's work–life balance. The paper highlights the interplay between subjective and objective factors in framing quality of work understandings, and reveals the omnipresent and ambivalent role of flexibility that may contribute to better work–life balance while disguising precarity.

The next paper in the special issue, by Isabella Stingl and Barbara Orth, entitled Becoming “Platform Workers”: A Biographical Exploration of Temporary Visa and Worker Subjectivities in the Gig Economy digs deeper into the interplay between biographical factors and understandings of quality of work. Stingl and Orth focus on a particular visa category, the so-called Working Holiday Visa (WHV), in Germany exploring the migration trajectories of highly educated Chilean and Argentinean gig workers in Berlin who end up providing the malleable labor force that platforms need. Adopting a biographical approach the study situates platform-mediated work in the larger life trajectories of these migrant workers. The paper aptly demonstrates the role of specific temporary migration policies in creating an available labor force for platforms, while also looking at how the migrant platform workers experience are informed by intersectional characteristics of migration status, class, gender, and age.

In a related vein, Iazzolino, Celoria, and Varesio investigate the legal geographies of platform albour in Italy. The study uses a legal geography lens to examine the construction of precarity among migrant food delivery workers in Turin, Italy. The study shows how the Italian migration system, and the way it is implemented, narrows the range of sources of income, and pushes migrants into a condition of liminal legality, formatting the malleable workforce upon which food delivery platforms deploy their biopower. The paper argues that the commodification of migrant labor in the platform food delivery sector in Turin, while driven by platform logics, is rooted in, and compounded by, the contradictions and opacity of the Italian immigration regime. The authors advance the novel concept of algorithmic-bureaucratic precarization which allows an understanding of how the interaction of the legal and the digital causes migrant workers to be held on the outermost margins of employment. The paper demonstrates the growing centrality of food delivery platforms in the political economy of migration where shifting migration policies, information asymmetries of digital platforms and legal loopholes exacerbate the socio-economic vulnerability of migrant workers. Unpacking the algorithmic-bureaucratic precarization the paper shows how legal and procedural failures illegalize migrants and asylum seekers and put them at risk of exploitation. The specific case study of migrant food delivery workers in Turin highlights how the platform economy is reshaping the nexus of neoliberal flexibilization and restrictive migration policies.

Contributions to this Special Issue point to the entanglements of technological advances with socio-economic realities shaping both the future of work and the future of migration. Critically analysing the nexus of migration (including digital nomad) policies, transformations of work modalities, and human agency, this Special Issue offers new empirical and theoretical insights that can inform both research and policy.