we begin an in-depth discussion with opinion leaders from around the world
the continued spread of code 19 is expected to hurt economic growth in many
countries on arirang news we've previously discussed the impact on
tourism and aviation but today we talked about the sharing economy now sharing
platforms have become an integral part of the modern economy and lifestyle
especially in countries like the US where consumers share their possessions
home spaces cars and even experiences huge platforms like uber and airbnb
facilitate this peer-to-peer consumer trend but the concept of sharing and
communal activities is something that is being discouraged and avoided with the
covert 19 outbreak as we are advised to maintain social distancing but what does
this mean for platform workers and the sharing economy for more we connect with
dr. Jerry Kaplan editor in chief of Digital Trends joining us from New York
we also have on the panel dr. king jeongjo affiliate professor at Hongik
University of Foreign Studies and so well my first question goes to you dr.
Kaplan what kind of services are the most
affected by this Koba 19 outbreak and which US companies are the most worried
right now no doctor I'm just a Jeremy but thank you I appreciate that yes
you're right it's easy to look at the travel industry and worry about the
impact on Airlines on cruise lines of course that's gonna be a real challenge
but you're right the the sharing economy which is a lot of ways very nascent as
an industry still trying to get its legs underneath it is facing a really serious
challenge here air beef air B&B for example seeing some real serious issues
people aren't willing to rent somebody else's house at this exact moment we've
also become very much a delivery economy these days and that's deliver of
everything from your clean laundry to your groceries to tonight's meals and
consumers are very concerned about the potential for that being a risky
delivery mechanism for these types of for the coronavirus itself so we're
seeing a lot of reluctance to rely upon those services and a lot of people that
are very reluctant to start looking at new ones and investing in new services
when there are these concerns that linger around you know the everyday life
rights and we've also seen many IT events canceled as well all these
companies and workers working from home I suppose well dr. Kim these platform
companies have workers and operations across many countries Airbnb in Beijing
for instance has suspended its services until May which countries do you think
will be the hardest hit by social distancing yeah I guess the intuitive
answer to that question would be those industries that you mentioned you have
already covered those countries that have heavy reliance on tourism I suppose
you mentioned aviation as well so our overall hospitality business but those
countries that rely upon of you know receiving many as many as possible the
third you know tourists coming into their countries Italy I guess is quite
interesting that it's on the top of the list of the countries that are suffering
from this case this time and makes perfect sense and and we heard the news
that there kind of like a freezing the movement of people all together and so
what we see is these countries in Europe hm oh we it began with you know it
started with the Asian countries but it's spreading to Europe here as well in
terms of social distancing as a whole it is going to affect and we are seeing
already that's in fact happening in other industries for example any kind of
industries that relies upon having people getting together restaurant
businesses different kinds of dining even retail a large retail places they
are seeing the impact arts and entertainment different kind of
performance exhibition they are all being affected so if you're talking
about industries where people can just stay separate you know in different
places that's fine but if you rely on some kind of mode or format of business
where people have to come together that's been seriously affected so many
industries where any kind of social activity or gathering is affected is
involved that those are going to be affected
well mr. Kaplan much of the sharing economy is driven by individual
from uber drivers to language instructors and personal trainers even
and especially in countries like the u.s. many of these workers are working
paycheck to paycheck and uber and lyft for instance are with this copa90 thout
planning to compensate their drivers affected by this virus for up to 14 days
but whether that's enough that's questionable
are there any underlying weaknesses of the sharing economy or platform
businesses that make workers more vulnerable to sudden shocks like this
epidemic yeah it kind of hits to the nature of these businesses themselves
because a lot of these platform companies don't have as great of a
number of actual employees they have contract workers that aren't fundamental
employees this is one way to grow a business very easily right you don't
have a lot of employees it's very easy to scale up but the flipside of that is
it's very easy to scale down as well so it's very easy to see a world where
it's just gonna name a company at random GrubHub for example has a number of
contract employees that go door-to-door delivering food if people are less
likely to buy food they are less likely to need those contract employees and
it's very real and I'm not trying to single out GrubHub I'm just saying it's
very easy to see a world where these type of economies suddenly start scaling
back these type of businesses start scaling back and saying we just don't
need as many employees these days given the demand for our business
now that's that means that makes sense for the from a business perspective it's
a very sound business all the sudden if you're that flexible and that easy able
to scale up and down it doesn't bode very well for the people that depend
upon this for a livelihood however so it can be a real challenge for the actual
people doing that delivery the actual people that participate in the sharing
economy yeah you know mr. Kaplan made a valid point you know in this kind of a
new economy through this kind of system workers seem to be bearing you know a
greater burden by having to adjust to the situation overall but we have to be
also reminded at the at the end of the day it's all business
you know the businesses if this continues on for a long time they will
also have to bear a considerable cost and sometimes some of these cost
businesses will have to go down as so indeed more burden is on the shoulder
the workers but we cannot say that burden is off the shoulders of the
business especially these businesses in dishonorable industries we just
mentioned before they seem to be facing great challenge at this point one - ad
also is we talked about delivery aside interesting thing in Korea so far at
least is of the delivery people people engaged in delivery services they're
having great time because Koreans somehow don't seem to mind having goods
delivered to their doors in this kind of circumstances so if we have a clear idea
about what kind of disease this is and how infectious it is and if we are quite
clear about the situation where you receive delivery at your door a point
things okay if we believe that I think delivery business at least will continue
all for or sometime pretty doing pretty good business yes I think there actually
are several I don't want to put too much of a positive spin on things there are a
lot of challenges that the coronavirus are presenting beyond merely health
issues but there are a number of areas where we can see potential growth I mean
if you think about for example a company like peloton which is disrupting the gym
industry people are a lot less likely to go to a gymnasium today because there
are concerns about gathering in fix places great opportunity for a company
like that to expand its its consumer pooling and people might be more willing
to try that out if they're looking to exercise at home in the safety of their
own home but you test out that new experience and if it's a good experience
really lean into that and gain some converts there yes I certainly have
noticed that and there is an expansion of you know more customized or any kind
of services that promotes sort of individual activities containment in the
home and as you both pointed out you know we are seeing a rise of some
services some delivery services even in the country but of course as mr. Kaplan
pointed out earlier that some businesses are expected to experience this fall
outs from koban 19 and my question goes to you dr. Kim how do you think economic
growth will be effected in countries where sharing platforms are heavily used
and employed thousands of gig workers I guess platform economy side-impact is
something that we have to wait and see at least in the underside of Korea the
United States's has greater reliable reliance upon that mode of economic
activities but here in Korea I think we have to witness it just a little bit but
as a whole you know Korea is still kind of having said that Korea is still a
largely manufacturing economy and the service sector is growing fast
manufacturing side we have already suffered considerably in February
because of China even before Korea this explosion of cases here but now we will
see greater impact because of this services sector shrinking down as I
mentioned people just getting not getting that no longer getting together
and retail places and then service places and so on so we will see more and
more of the impact growing and as you mentioned this kind of platform economy
the impact will be clearly shown eventually in about several weeks down
the road that's my guess do you have anything to add to that
doctor I'm sorry mr. Caplin quite all right
I think we were we've been thinking about it we haven't actually mentioned
it the big impact that I think a lot of these gig workers are gonna face is the
healthcare one right I mean we're talking about a health crisis that is
striking across the nation here across the globe and if you're an employee
that's a contract worker working hourly you probably don't have health insurance
so the really big ramification that could present again down the road we're
thinking about things that might occur here say the outbreak gets worse I'm
worrying about here in the US we have a number of people that don't have health
care what happens to those employees I'm sorry with those people I think there's
a real concern that's good that's going to arise if there is a much greater
outbreak here in the States and when we're all fretting a little bit about
what might what might occur here right in in Korea's case the there is seems to
be a strong social consensus here about the need to protect those kind of a
contract based workers here and so several politicians have already
proposed a progressive ones of course proposed some dramatic measures of like
a basic income different kinds of base Ramirez being actively discussed I don't
know whether it will be implemented or not but on a separate note government
Korean government is working on introducing supplementary budget with
the big size as well in order to help those lower income and workers on
contract basis working arrangement so help is coming the way at least on the
side of Korea as far as I understand yes perhaps this epidemic is really exposing
some structural weaknesses that the sharing economy already has so looking
forward do you think we should simply wait out the outbreak or is an urgent
course of action needed to overcome this fallouts and even perhaps address the
underlying shortcomings of the sharing economy what do you think let's go with
you first mr. Caplin yeah honestly I do believe there are some underlying
shortcomings to this economy we saw a real challenge was presented just
recently here in the States a law that came out from California addressing
specifically how how a platform companies treat employees do they have
to provide health care do they have to treat them as actual employees it's a
law based solely in California just based on people that are employed in
California but cuts right to the heart of this matter how should a business
treat people that work for it can you just have a contract worker or must they
be treated as are their fundamental rights that a person has because of the
hours that they spend being employed here it's a it's a very thorny question
but it's very easy to see the point that the California lawmakers are trying to
make here we have an obligation to treat people fairly to treat them well and it
cuts right to the heart of the platform situation should uber have tens of
thousands of drivers or should ever have tens of thousands of employees that have
health care which is a fundamental change to their business a fundamentally
expensive one we were talking earlier about their ability to scale up and
scale down as well fundamental change to that flexibility so that could have some
severe ramifications if that becomes a nationwide law or even a global sort of
movement right the fundamental question of protecting workers rights and dr. Kim
let's wrap up this discussion with yeah eventually if these economies
American US economy recording economy if we see our economies going towards the
direction of getting more and more that of the tourists that of gig economy I
think we need a greater social consensus if the whole point of our key economy is
not imposing burden on the shoulder companies having more of these insurance
coverages then at least society-wide we need a consensus to come up with a
social insurance coverage of these kind of people who are working on contract
basis so as the economy evolves we need social consensus making to back it up
and in the long run I think the social insurance is one of the ways to cover
its weaknesses I suppose I agree a society-wide discussion is very much
needed here in Korea and around the world as well as we deal with these
growing platform businesses well that's where we'll have to end the discussion
today Jeremy Kaplan editor-in-chief of Digital Trends and dr. king jeongjo of
Hong Kong University of Foreign Studies thank you for your insights thank you
this also wraps up our show today we'll be back at the same time tomorrow with
more in-depth discussions with experts around the world we hope you join us
then goodbye