Research shows inequality in Swedish online retailing

The class, gender and racial/ethnic inequality in online retailing is great both between managers and workers and between different groups of workers. However, the degree of inequality differs between different workplaces within the industry as a result of how the online retailing work is organised. This is suggested in a new doctoral thesis in the field of human work science at Luleå University of Technology – one of the first studies on the work in online retail warehousing, a growing industry in Sweden.

“The inequality issue is highly topical within online retailing, where fast and cheap deliveries play such a central role. The question is who will pay the price”, says Klara Rydström, researcher in human work science at Luleå University of Technology, who has recently defended her doctoral thesis Unpacking Online Retailing: The Organization of Warehouse Work and Inequality.

Previous research suggests that online retailing is characterised by repetitive work and a high working pace. Most research on warehouse work within the online retailing industry has been conducted in the US and on the warehousing of the e-commerce platform Amazon. The Swedish study carried out at Luleå University of Technology focuses on warehouse work and analyses five Swedish online retail warehouses in the homeware, electronic, recreational, pharmacy and grocery sectors. The results show that the degree of inequality in the workplace depends on processes to organise the work, for example, the division of work tasks, the monitoring of workers’ performance through productivity data, and a Swedish language policy.

The inequality in Swedish online retailing manifests itself in, among other things, which work tasks different groups perform, based on perceptions about what different groups are good at. Although Swedish online retailing employs 50 per cent men and 50 per cent women, varying gender patterns exist at the workplace level. There is a perception that women are more attentive at details in the picking and packing and more service-oriented while men are better at handling heavy lifting. Units that involved heavy work tended to be male-dominated, and the warehouse workers had a greater influence on their work.

Among the online retailing companies in the Swedish study, there are smaller women-dominated warehouses as well as bigger warehouses with a high proportion of warehouse workers of foreign background. Many of the warehouses collected productivity data, i.e. the number of products and packets that were handled. The data was collected by means of scanners and digital systems used for registering the goods. The doctoral thesis shows that this serves as a monitoring of the warehouse workers; something that was more common in bigger warehouses with more use of technology in the goods management process.

“Many workers found it very disturbing that their handling of the number of packets and goods were registered. They felt dehumanised and reduced to figures”, says Klara Rydström.

The smaller warehouses did not have the same need for monitoring. The managers and workers in such warehouses were closer to each other, both physically and socially. At times, the managers participated in the work on the warehouse floor and their presence contributed to the reduction of inequality. Another positive aspect was the opportunity for warehouse workers to chat during packing the goods, whereas chatting was not possible in bigger warehouses with large open areas and high levels of noise.

A summary of statistics from Statistics Sweden shows that 23 per cent of employees in the online retailing industry are non-native. The proportion is even higher in big warehouses, amounting to 32 per cent. Klara Ryström states that this can be explained by the companies’ need for labour force that may accept uncertain working conditions.

“Hard work in online warehouses can be a strategy for someone who needs a permanent employment to obtain a permanent residence permit in Sweden”, says Klara Rydström.

One of the companies in the study demanded that everyone should speak Swedish in the workplace. Knowledge of the Swedish language was considered important to facilitate an advancement from the warehouse floor to better positions and to be able to apply for other positions outside the warehouse. However, the warehouse workers were not offered language courses. According to Klara Rydström, the language policy is racializing in how it is used as a form of control of warehouse workers whose first language is not Swedish. The policy reinforces the inequality between them and the Swedish-speaking managers and warehouse workers.

The study on which the doctoral thesis is based is part of a larger research project, Retail 4.0? Work environment and inequality in e-retail, carried out in collaboration with researchers at University of Gävle and financed by FORTE (Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare).

• Unpacking Online Retailing: The Organization of Warehouse Work and Inequality External link..