Older Venezuelans turn to online gig work during economic crisis

In 2020, then 66-year-old Guillermina Alfonso was struggling to make ends meet as a professor at the Central University of Venezuela. “If I had had a medical emergency, I wouldn’t have been able to go to a clinic or get extra medication. Buying new clothes or shoes was an absolute no-no. No social outings or fun outings,” she said Rest of the world. “I only worked to eat.”

So Alfonso, a biologist with a PhD in molecular biology, turned to gig work. She paid for online courses to qualify herself for jobs on online gig platforms such as Workana, We Are Content, Upwork and Freelancer to supplement her salary. After moving to Spain in late 2021, she submitted her resume to a few academic institutions in her new home country but never heard back. She suspects it is due to her age. From then on, online gig work became her main source of income.

“When you work remotely creating content, there are no age issues because you don’t see faces,” says Alfonso, who is now 70.. “It’s about the content being quality and that it works.”

Online gig work, also known as ‘cloud work’, commonly refers to freelance work mediated by digital platforms, which can be done anywhere in the world. Tasks range from data annotation and labeling for artificial intelligence training to translating academic materials or creating content for brands. Customers range from billion-dollar companies like Amazon to individuals requesting one-off services.

According to a 2021 survey by the International Labor Organization (ILO), the average age of an online gig worker is about 31 years old. But older workers like Alfonso, who no longer have opportunities in the formal labor market due to their age, have also found a lifeline in this type of work.

In Venezuela, where conditions for the elderly are dire, online odd jobs are particularly attractive. According to the Venezuelan Finance Observatory, retired workers receive a pension worth $3.50 per month, plus occasional bonuses of up to $30 per month.

The World Bank states that a person needs at least $2.15 a day to live above the poverty line. “This means that an elderly person in Venezuela can barely survive two days above the poverty line with the pension (equal to $3.50). The remaining 28 days they are dependent on others,” said Luis Francisco Cabezas, director of Convite, a Venezuelan organization dedicated to defending the rights of the elderly and other marginalized groups. Rest of the world. Convite reports that 55% of 1,535 older Venezuelans surveyed say their monthly expenses exceed $100.

Many of these older Venezuelans have turned to online gig work — and in particular to “clickwork,” a type of cloud work where people make money labeling and annotating data to train AI systems. In 2021, Julian Posada, assistant professor at Yale University and member of the law school’s Information Society Project, published data analysis of web traffic aggregation websites, focusing on platforms that crowdsource data work. Posada found that Venezuela is home to the largest number of data workers in the world after the US.

According to Convite’s Cabezas, seniors’ experiences during Covid-19 lockdowns also played a role in their online job search. Being stuck at home forced them to familiarize themselves with online tools to communicate with family and access payment services, he said. “The pandemic has left as a legacy a significant increase in the technological literacy of the elderly, and the diaspora has also brought them closer to technology, either to communicate with grandchildren and children who have left or to interact with platforms to generate dollars to convert those people sent (them) to bolivares,” Cabezas said.

6% The estimated percentage of online gig workers in Latin America represented by people over 55 years old.

World Bank

Rafael Ramírez, a former systems engineer and teacher in Caracas, at the age of 52, has not had a formal job since leaving his previous job at an institute in 2015. Since then he has been doing online work – mainly translations, lessons and tutoring. on platforms such as Workana, Freelancer and Babelcube. Ramírez told Rest of the world he sees job openings that require significant experience, but limits the age of applicants to under 30. “People of a certain age, with a certain experience, are not a good fit for companies because they should pay them based on their knowledge,” he said.

Ramírez now works 20 to 40 hours a week on various platforms and earns between €200 and €300 per month. That’s the equivalent of two or three times the monthly minimum wage in Venezuela, although rampant inflation means his wages don’t reach far. He is now teaching himself how to invest in crypto and is building an investment fund, which includes crypto assets, for when he retires. Once he learns well enough how to handle such investments, he plans to leave the gig platforms.

As a professor of computer science at the Central University of Venezuela, 49-year-old Yusneiyi Carballo earns about $150 a month and works between 50 and 60 hours a week. She earns additional income from online performances, mainly ghostwriting for We Are Content, a Colombian company. That gives her an average of €200 to €215 extra.

“A big advantage of working remotely… is that not much attention is paid to your age,” she said Rest of the world. “I believe that in face-to-face work there is still some prejudice about the age at which they are going to hire you in some cases.”

There is a shortage of age-specific data on cloud workers around the world. Fairwork, a project of the Oxford Internet Institute that examines platform work worldwide, does not keep statistics broken down by age, but estimates that there are 163 million online gig workers worldwide in 2020. A 2023 World Bank report estimated that people over the age of 55 represent about 3.8% of the online gig workforce in various regions around the world, or about 6.2 million workers. In Latin America and the Caribbean they account for 6%, which would indicate millions of older workers.

According to Fairwork, cloud work platforms have “gained traction in recent years as an alternative for workers, especially those who have been marginalized in formal labor markets due to geography, discrimination, disability, caregiving responsibilities and other factors.”

II, a 60-year-old former lawyer in Caracas, started working online during the pandemic. Today, through Remotasks and Appen, II, who asked to be identified by her initials because the platforms ban employees from speaking to the media, is involved in data training and annotation for AI algorithms.

It was difficult to maintain a career as a lawyer in Venezuela given the tense political context, she said Rest of the world. “In the current situation in my country, it is difficult to pursue my career and I fear for my life. That’s why I prefer to do other things.” Working on sensitive legal cases posed physical risks to her well-being, she said.

Most Venezuelan gig workers Rest of the world spoke, said they taught themselves how to do a lot of the work. II said she studies platforms’ guidelines for each task before taking qualifying tests to participate in projects. Carballo, a professor of computer science, says her familiarity with technology helped her enter the industry. “Being a computer scientist, I am no stranger to these tools,” she says. For Carballo, what helps most is a good attitude toward the instruments, which makes many people feel threatened, she said.

Omar Alfonzo, a 53-year-old graphic designer and video editor from Caracas, uses video tutorials on YouTube and Twitch to learn new skills. He is also part of a WhatsApp community for people using Blender, an open source 3D computer graphics resource.

Today, Alfonzo earns about $400 a month. He told Rest of the world he enjoys the type of work he does, and because of this passion he feels encouraged to stay abreast of emerging technologies.

“I know people my age, around fifty, who are really old-fashioned. Technology has overwhelmed them, but I have made it a point to always stay on top of things,” said Alfonzo. But he pushed aside the prospect of ever retiring. “Retire? I don’t think the situation allows it, even as a joke.”