數字平臺改變就業市場 Digital marketplace reshapes casual labou
Dmitry Melnichenko’s wife had doubts about his plan to quit his stable, nine-to-five job to work from home as a freelance web developer; there was the uncertain income stream, the lack of interaction with colleagues and their young daughter to think about.
德米特里蔠利尼琴科(Dmitry Melnichenko)打算辭去朝九晚五的穩定工作，在家當一名自由網絡開發員的時候，他的妻子有過疑慮：收入來源不穩定，缺乏與同事的互動，而且他們還有個小女兒，這些都是需要考慮的問題。
But not only has Mr Melnichenko earned more since going solo than his wife expected, now Mrs Melnichenko, a financial controller with a large Ukrainian agricultural company, is also quitting her job and training as a coder — joining more than 120,000 Ukrainian freelancers pitching for work on online platforms like Upwork.
然而，不僅是梅利尼琴科自從單幹後收入超出了妻子的預期，如今就連梅利尼琴科的太太也辭去了在烏克蘭一家大型農業公司擔任財務總監的工作，開始學習編程，加入了烏克蘭12萬多人的自由職業者大軍，在Upwork等在線平臺上爭取工作。
“Previously I was working with one of the biggest outsourcing companies on supply chain management. But now I can work from home and I have my own clients, so I have much more freedom,” says Mr Melnichenko.
梅利尼琴科說：“以前我在一家大型外包公司從事供應鏈管理工作。但現在我可以在家辦公，我有了自己的客戶，因此我的自由度大大提高了。”
Ukraine’s army of freelancers, the fourth-largest in Upwork’s global network, earned $61m in 2014. For the mainly western companies that dole out jobs on the website, Ukrainian web and mobile developers are cheap, responsive and easily assessed based on verified reviews by previous clients.
烏克蘭自由職業者大軍的人數在Upwork全球網絡中排名第四，2014年他們共收入6100萬美元。在該網站上發佈工作的主要是西方公司，根據過往用戶的點評，在這些公司看來，烏克蘭的網絡和移動開發人員價格便宜，響應及時，而且聯繫方便。
Digital platforms like Upwork, which act as marketplaces matching freelancers with work, are bringing new opportunities to many people who were once on the fringes of the global workforce. But they are also becoming a hot political potato on both sides of the Atlantic.
Upwork這樣的將自由職業者和工作機會匹配起來的市場平臺，爲許多曾處於全球勞動力市場邊緣地帶的人帶來新的工作機會。但這些平臺也成爲大西洋兩岸一個政治上的燙手山芋。
Thanks largely to the backlash against ride-hailing service Uber, the type of work they are creating has come under intense scrutiny — in particular, the impact they are having on more traditional jobs that have come with secure pay and benefits.
很大程度上由於打車服務優步(Uber)遭到強烈反對，此類平臺所創造的工作類型已被置於放大鏡下審視，特別是就這些平臺對那些有着穩定收入和福利的較傳統工作造成了何種影響。
Freelancers have long accounted for a significant share of the work in some professions. But platforms like Uber and Upwork — a US-based company formed from the merger of Elance and Odesk — represent a new way to break jobs into piecemeal tasks and reach many more workers, potentially affecting a far wider range of work.
自由職業者在某些行業早就佔了相當大的比例。但優步和Upwork等平臺代表了一種新方式，它們將工作拆分成零碎的任務，能夠聯繫到更多勞動者，這一方式很可能會影響廣泛得多的工作類型。Upwork是一家美國公司，由Elance和Odesk合併而成。
Along with marketplaces for drivers and professionals, companies jumping on this bandwagon include those providing so-called “on-demand” services, from Instacart (grocery shopping) to Handy (home cleaning) and Task Rabbit (for an almost limitless range of small errands).
加入這股潮流的除了面向司機和專業人士的市場平臺，還有提供所謂“按需”服務的公司，包括提供食品雜貨服務的Instacart、提供家庭保潔的Handy，以及提供幾乎各種跑腿服務的Task Rabbit。
In Europe, “these platforms aren’t yet at the scale of the US, they are only just emerging — but we estimate the same trends” will follow, says Jacques Bughin, a partner at McKinsey in Brussels.
麥肯錫(McKinsey)駐布魯塞爾合夥人雅克布金(Jacques Bughin)表示：“這些平臺（在歐洲）纔剛剛出現，還達不到它們在美國的規模，但我們估計這裏也會出現相同的勢頭。”
For the Melnichenkos and others, the rapid expansion of a digital marketplace for casual labour has offered greater flexibility and opportunities they wouldn’t otherwise have had. Mr Melnichenko says the arrival of online freelance platforms has meant he doesn’t have to move to Kiev from his home town of Zaporizhia.
對於梅利尼琴科等人來說，要不是互聯網兼職市場的快速擴張，他們不會得到如此多的靈活性和機會。梅利尼琴科說網上兼職平臺的出現意味着他不用從家鄉小鎮扎波羅熱(Zaporizhia)搬到基輔去。
In the first three months of 2015 alone, 16,000 Ukrainian freelancers registered with Upwork; many thousands of them fresh school or university graduates, attracted by the promise of high earnings and flexible conditions. Mobile and web developers are the most highly sought workers but graphic designers and translators are also pitching for jobs.
僅2015年第一季度，烏克蘭就有1.6萬名自由職業者在Upwork上註冊，其中有數千人剛從高中或大學畢業，吸引他們的是高額收入的前景以及靈活的工作方式。最搶手的是移動和網絡開發人員，但也有不少圖形設計和翻譯在上面尋找工作機會。
“All of a sudden, someone with a particular profile — a talent, or work availability — can be matched with a need,” says James Manyika, a partner at McKinsey. That pulls more people into the workforce who were marginalised before, either because they couldn’t find a job or were working fewer hours than they wanted. “This is often lost in the debate,” he says.
麥肯錫合夥人詹姆斯氠尼卡(James Manyika)說：“突然之間，某一特定人羣——擁有專業技能或空餘時間的人，可以與工作需求相匹配了。”這讓更多人進入勞動力市場，這些人以前要麼是找不到工作，要麼是工作時長達不到自己的目標。他說：“在這場辯論中，人們往往忘記了這一點。”
The emergence of new digital platforms will add 2.5 per cent to European employment numbers by 2025, with some countries like Spain potentially seeing twice that growth, according to McKinsey — though the higher numbers are partly the result of making work previously done in the informal “grey economy” visible by pulling it on to online marketplaces.
麥肯錫表示，至2015年，新數字平臺的出現將讓歐洲就業人數增加2.5%，西班牙等國家的就業人數增幅可能還會兩倍於這個數字。不過就業人數提高的部分原因，在於數字平臺將此前在非正規“灰色經濟”中完全的一些工作放到了在線市場平臺上，讓這些原本不爲人知的工作暴露在了陽光下。
The overall effect is “greater participation” — a factor that could lift the GDP of the UK and Germany by nearly 1 percentage point over the next decades, consultants say.
諮詢業人士表示，總體效果是“提高了工作參與率”，未來十年這一因素可以將英國和德國兩國的國內生產總值(GDP)提高近1個百分點。
In the US, digital platforms already provide a material source of income for many, according to Mary Meeker, a partner at venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. The average professional finding work on Thumbtack earns $8,000 a year, with Airbnb users making $7,700 and eBay sellers pull in $3,000, she says — meaningful given most see these as supplemental forms of income. Companies like Uber also argue that many of their workers rely on several different platforms to make a living, making it unfair to judge them on the basis of their earnings from a single marketplace.
風投公司凱鵬華盈(Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers)合夥人瑪麗猠克(Mary Meeker)表示，數字平臺在美國已經成爲許多人的重要收入來源。她說在Thumbtack上找活兒的專業人士平均能每年能賺到8000美元，Airbnb用戶和eBay賣家的這個數字分別是7700美元和3000美元，考慮到這對於他們中大多數人只是外快，這已經不是個小數目了。優步等公司也認爲，它們的許多員工都是同時在幾個平臺上接單，基於他們在單一平臺上的收入來評判是不公平的。
But by opening up work to people who were unable to compete easily in a global market for talent, digital marketplaces have already produced some clear winners. Dennis Vorobyov, a web developer whose company, GBKSOFT, also bids for jobs on Upwork, says his mother, a doctor with over 25 years experience, earns less in one month than many of his web developer friends can earn from US clients in one day.
數字市場將工作提供給一些原本無法輕易在全球人才市場上參與競爭的人，由此已經促成了一些明顯的贏家。丹尼斯茠坬比約夫(Dennis Vorobyov)是一名網絡開發人員，他的公司GBKSOFT也在Upwork上尋找工作。丹尼斯說他母親是一名醫生，有25年工作經驗，但她一個月的收入還不如他的網絡開發員朋友從美國客戶那兒一天賺的錢多。
“People are now dreaming of becoming programmers, we have more and more schools offering courses in programming,” he says. “This is a big change in psychology; young Ukrainians these days are brave; they aren’t scared to register online and start freelancing. It’s a different attitude to life and money.”
丹尼斯說：“人們現在都夢想成爲程序員，我們有越來越多的學校提供編程課程。這是心理上的一個重大變化，如今的烏克蘭年輕人是勇敢的，他們不懼怕在網上註冊成爲一名自由職業者。這是一種不同的生活觀和金錢觀。”
