The Great Recession resulted from Troika’s intervention, followed by austerity measures and a major restructuring of the labour market, commodification of public services and restructuring of capital with automation and the substitution of goods for services, resulting in mass unemployment and precarious work (Carmo et al., 2021). In the aftermath of the Great Recession, platform economy (Kenney & Zysman, 2016), tourism, and foreign investment became alternatives to overcome the accumulation crisis. Around 2015, Portugal suffered an intense wave of “touristification” within a process of transnational gentrification (Cócola-Gant, 2016, 2018; Füller & Michel, 2014). Lisbon was promoted as an ideal destination not only for tourists, but also for international students and lifestyle migrants looking for a good and cheap place to live in southern Europe. There was also a trend towards the digital management of work, which extended well beyond work carried out under the control of online platforms, that is, the platformisation and uberisation of work.
Uberisation is a new form of organisation, management and control of work, being mediated by information and communication technologies (ICTs), which together with the expansion of the service sector has increased informal, unstable and precarious working conditions, especially through poorly remunerated operational activities (Antunes, 2018). It is devoid of a standard employment relationship between the employee and the employer, accommodating all the exceptions to the standard capitalist system, where the worker becomes an entrepreneur of him/herself and/or an independent contractor (Antunes, 2018, 2020; Huws, 2016).
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