Photo: Meier & Kamer GmbH

The people and their employment situations that Karin Schwiter researches are often not captured by official statistics. In this interview, the Professor of Labour Geography in the Department of Geography at the University of Zurich explains how such data gaps arise and why the DIZH Public Data Lab is particularly well suited to making these gaps visible.

Karin, why are you taking part in the Public Data Lab (PDL)?

Karin: I’ve been working on precarious work for quite some time. It’s a broad term for work situations that – for various reasons – involve significant uncertainty and unpredictability, and do not provide a secure livelihood. Many of these jobs or employment situations don’t appear in any labour market statistics. That struck me as odd, because it seems that at the lower end of the labour market, there’s a considerable number of jobs, or rather people, who remain invisible when we rely on conventional quantitative methods and labour market indicators. When Ross (Purves) told me he was launching a project on indicators, I immediately thought of these areas of the labour market. They’re difficult to capture quantitatively, but there are qualitative ways to make them visible. That’s exactly what motivated me to get involved in the DIZH Public Data Lab: To make the invisible visible. First, however, we need to find out what remains invisible before we can explore which methods of making it visible are meaningful. The collaboration with the Cantonal Statistical Office Zurich helps us with the former, and the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) supports us with the latter. I’m looking forward to developing approaches with these partners to bring precarious work more prominently into public discourse.

Could you give a few examples of precarious forms of work and explain why they are difficult to capture quantitatively?

Precarious work is an umbrella term. It includes, for example, underemployment – also known as involuntary part-time work. People are considered underemployed when they do have a job, but don’t get enough paid hours to make a living. These are usually jobs with unclear working hours, found across various sectors. One example is on-call work, where the number of hours can vary greatly, from just one to many hours per week. Take someone who cleans rooms in a hotel and is paid per room cleaned. Their working hours and therefore their income depend on the number of hotel guests. However, they must always be available, meaning they can’t take on other jobs. This person won’t appear in unemployment statistics because they technically have a job. Yet, due to their fluctuating income, they often struggle to make ends meet. This kind of underemployment is a consequence of increasing labour market flexibility. Flexibility is great when both sides benefit, but in cases of underemployment, it serves only the employer, who retains control.

“People often underestimate how many individuals in Switzerland work under precarious conditions – many of them women and people with a migration background.”

Karin Schwiter

Precarious work also includes platform-based employment. These are jobs arranged via online platforms. It’s another form of on-call work, which is increasingly common in sectors such as cleaning, childcare, elder care, and delivery services. These platforms often have a limited number of tasks available, but a high demand from workers. This means that as a platform worker, I have to invest a lot of time constantly checking for new tasks and applying for them immediately. Many of these jobs are at very short notice – sometimes starting within 30 minutes. So I’m never truly off-duty and can hardly ever switch off. Most of these jobs don’t appear in labour market statistics, and some of the people doing them aren’t officially registered here. That’s why the number of people working under precarious conditions in Switzerland is often underestimated, many of them are women and individuals with a migration background.

What is your role within the PDL?

I’m leading one of the four flagship projects on precarious forms of work and supervising Merlin Hebecker, who will begin his PhD with us in September. In addition, part of my research on precarious work feeds into the Public Data Lab. For example, we’re investigating platform-based work: which jobs are affected, what it means for workers to be constantly on call, and what consequences this has for their daily lives and social relationships. Our research also looks at the strategies workers develop to cope with a system that works against them – or what they do to make the best possible use of it. This includes things like shared accounts or passing jobs on to others.

How are you approaching this flagship project to identify and make new forms of precarious work visible?

Our first step is to sit down with the experts at the Cantonal Statistical Office Zurich who are responsible for labour market data and indicators. They have extensive knowledge in this area and are also familiar with potential gaps in the data. Together with them, we’ll define our focus, for example, on specific sectors or types of jobs. In terms of methodology, we’ll speak directly with affected workers, as they are the true experts in their own work. This helps us understand how their working lives function and what consequences arise from them. We’ll also collaborate with employers, industry specialists, trade associations, and unions to gain a deeper understanding of how such employment relationships come about. This enables us to develop measures and strategies aimed at creating more secure and sustainable jobs in these fields.

“That’s why we want to critically reflect on the limitations of the indicators currently used to represent the labour market.”

Karin Schwiter

What are your goals?

I want to make precarious work and the people working under such conditions more visible. We’re using a qualitative approach that places those affected at the centre: What does this kind of employment mean for them? In many cases, these individuals can’t easily be counted. That’s why we want to critically reflect on the limitations of the indicators currently used to represent the labour market. I also aim to push for regulations that ensure as many of these jobs as possible provide a secure livelihood and help prevent exploitation. Ultimately, we want to raise public awareness about these forms of precarious work.

Where do you see challenges?

At the Public Data Lab, a wide range of perspectives and research methods come together – from machine learning, which can process vast amounts and many types of data, to our work, which is qualitative and focuses on individual stories of workers. For me, the challenge lies in finding a shared language that allows us to understand one another and collaborate effectively.

What are you most looking forward to?

I’m really looking forward to working with the Cantonal Statistical Office, our societal partner. It’s incredibly exciting for us to collaborate with people who are committed to ensuring that labour market data is as accurate and useful as possible, and who use this data in their daily work. I’m also eager to explore the possibilities and limitations of indicators together with the other research teams in our project. Additionally, I’m curious about the collaboration with the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK), because we want to go beyond simply publishing indicators and find innovative ways to engage in dialogue with the public. I’m very keen to brainstorm ideas with them.

Karin Schwiter is an Assistant Professor of Labour Geography at the University of Zurich. She is co-editor of the books "Handbuch Feministische Geographien" (Budrich, 2021) and "Home Care for Sale" (Sage, 2024). For her current research project "Underemployed", she was awarded a five-year ERC Advanced Grant by the European Research Council in June 2025. Outside university, she is active in political projects and enjoys spending time in the mountains with friends.