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Culture

Crowd-working: Opportunities and risks

May 16, 2017

It sounds like a dream: working from home on contracts handed out online. But the setup has been lambasted by unions for undermining social standards.

https://p.dw.com/p/2d2v9
DW Sendung Shift Crowdworking
Image: ZDF

Crowd-workers can earn money with everything from small translation jobs to adding keywords to online texts and shooting photos of specific items. Tendering contracts online makes financial sense for the companies in question, as it saves them the high costs associated with salaried employees. Because crowd-workers tend to work from home, companies have no need to provide office space or welfare insurance. Unions are critical of the practice, claiming it endangers regular jobs, undermines social standards and leaves contract workers with no rights. 

Tags: Internet, crowd-working, criticism, part-time job, second job,