The Fact
Research on shadow work documents the transfer of tasks once performed by paid workers—such as checkout, ticketing, booking, banking transactions, customer-service troubleshooting, and data entry—onto customers through self-service and digital systems.
What This Means
The labor did not necessarily disappear when the employee disappeared. Part of it moved onto the customer. Families now spend personal time scanning, booking, entering information, troubleshooting, authenticating accounts, tracking shipments, and navigating automated systems—work that is usually unpaid and performed on top of jobs and ordinary household responsibilities.
Sources
- Lambert, Craig. Shadow Work: The Unpaid, Unseen Jobs That Fill Your Day. Berkeley: Counterpoint Press, 2015.