Abstract
Filipinos have been involved in exporting labor for more than half a century, with remittances contributing a significant portion to the Philippine economy. In recent times, remote work and online freelancing have become attractive alternatives to becoming migrant workers: get paid in international rates but stay at home. This comes with tradeoffs, such as being part of both the gig and platform economies, such as the precarious nature of the work. This means that workers may find themselves lacking in job and financial security, as well as encounter difficulties in terms of social mobility. Nonetheless, this form of employment remains popular among the working class. Likewise, the media industry, specifically its workers (e.g., journalists, editors, designers, photographers), have seen recent slowdowns in terms of job growth. Labor-displacing technologies such as artificial intelligence have exacerbated this in recent years. At the intersection of all these, the current research suggests that there are many commonalities among problems faced by these remote, freelance and media workers: work precarity. It is however surprising that the specific concerns of Philippine freelance or remote media workers and their concerns seem unexplored, or at least underexplored, hence this study. Using purposive and maximum variation sampling strategies to identify a variety of media workers, audio-recorded interviews will be conducted and thematically analyzed to examine this sector. Pertinent contributions of the study could potentially inform the gig and remote media workers, as well as policies for the Philippines and the recipient states of this form of labor export.
Presenters
Alphonsus Luigi AlfonsoAssistant Professorial Lecturer, Filipino, De La Salle University, Philippines
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Precarity, Media Workers, Labor Export, Gig Economy, Platform Economy
