The pandemic depresses online labour markets, but some countries are bouncing back – Insights from South Korea, Germany, and the United States

The global demand for online freelance work is strongly influenced by demand from the United States, as the US represents approximately half of all the demand for online labour measured by the Online Labour Index. However, the United States was not the first economy to be impacted by the pandemic and its countermeasures. Our data allows us to assess how online labour demand has changed in early 2020 across different countries. In our most recent working paper contribution “Distancing Bonus or Downscaling Loss? The Changing Livelihood of US Online Workers in Times of COVID-19” we examine three important regional economies with different COVID-19 trajectories and responses: United States, Germany, and South Korea.