The role of digitisation in employment and its new challenges for Labour Law Regulation. The Hungarian, Italian and Spanish solutions, comparison, and criticism Articles uri icon

publication date

  • December 2021

start page

  • 101

end page

  • 132

issue

  • 2

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

  • 2064-4965

abstract

  • The study comprehensively presents the main effects of digitisation. Due to its
    complexity, digitisation affects the employment and labour markets in different ways.
    It partially changes working conditions, brings to life new forms of employment and,
    as a result of the development of technology, professions disappear. Thus, all this
    necessarily poses different challenges to the legislation. The forms of work in the
    gig economy – which was brought to life by the online space – cannot be classified
    as a traditional legal framework. Teleworking has been absolutely valorised by the
    coronavirus pandemic. Looking to the near future, after the end of the pandemic,
    teleworking is expected to play a much more significant role in the labour market.
    The study presents the marked forms of digitisation that have emerged in employment
    and summarises its supranational legal issues. It also presents the digitisation
    characteristics of Hungary, Italy and Spain. It examines how legislation and the
    judiciary have provided answers to the issues of digitisation. Consequently, the study analyses three main trends: the impact of digitalisation in general, telework, and the
    gig economy, with special regard to the categorisation of workers (employees, self- employed and
    possible third categories in between). The study argues that the concept of ‘employment
    relationship" has to be interpreted in a much broader way; general guarantees must be valid for all
    forms of work performed by people in economic dependence and in a state of economic weakness.

subjects

  • Law

keywords

  • digitisation; telework; crowdwork; application-based work; automation; robotics; classification of employment