How do we see digital platform workers’ skill patterns? Evidence from south-eastern Europe

Abstract

The study aims to identify and describe the most relevant professional skill patterns among the digital platform workers from the selected Southeastern European (SEE) countries. Such orientation is based on the relatively modest presence of SEE countries in large pan-European studies, and on the lack of information regarding the applicability of existing online job taxonomies in observed countries. Applying a topic approach as a natural language processing technique, we analyzed the sets of self-reported skills provided by digital platform workers registered at the Upwork platform. Seven distinctive skill profiles were extracted, which only partly overlapped with the standard Oxford’s Online Labour Index of digital job taxonomy. Results are indicating clear distinctions between highly specialized and general job categories, and between creative and technical professions. Mapping of the skills and national affiliations reveal differences between EU and non-EU countries in the region regarding professional inclinations. Partly in line with the findings of previous studies, the results pave the way for future research on this topic.