Experimental statistics on digital platform employment

In 2022, 3.0% of people aged 15-64 worked through digital platforms at least 1 hour in the 12 months preceding the survey. This result comes from a pilot data collection in 16 EU countries and 1 EFTA country.

The share was highest among people with tertiary education (4.3%) and lowest among those who finished up to lower secondary education (1.8%). Men were more likely to engage in platform work than women (3.2% vs. 2.8%).

Eurostat began collecting data on the emerging phenomenon of digital platform employment in 2022 with a pilot survey within the European Union Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS).

The results, published as experimental statistics, provide information on the people who performed paid work through digital platforms with a breakdown by sex, age, education level, activity type and employment status, as well as on their work arrangements and working conditions.

Source dataset: lfst_dpw_01

In 2022, more than half of digital platform workers were not covered in case of unemployment (62.4%), sickness (56.3%) or work-related accidents (54.2%). Roughly one-quarter of the workers were covered by another job not related to platforms (25.1% for accidents, 25.0% for sickness and 23.3% for unemployment) and the remaining workers were covered by the platform or by another, not work-related, source.