Now we'll have to have a 5-star rating to get a temp job, one that probably won't pay well.
Ah an it will be all be tied to your identity. Forever. That's awesome !
And who will rate us ? Our temporary boss. Hooray for the power dynamics !
Great!
What's wrong in a simple world where most people can be just mediocre and hold a stable job ?
Unless we're talking about "high risk" jobs, why make life harder than it already is ? for what ?
Why not aim there, collectively ?
Thank god that back when I was babysitting for extra cash, there wasn't some faceless, soulless automated system judging my Identity and Merit.
What is it about technology that induces people to zoom straight toward dystopia? The gig economy has always been there; just because we now have the technology to turn it into an Orwellian hellscape doesn't mean there are suddenly safety concerns that demand we do so.
The "gig economy" relies on the jobs being simple and atomised. It relies on the quality being easy to collapse into a single number, and no tacit knowledge or ongoing relationship involved in the production. Managers keep assuming that these kind of internal transaction costs are unimportant, and that's how you get outsourcing disasters.
"Gig economy" startups pick at the low hanging fruit first. Taxi drivers who are already hired by the journey are much more easily "decentralised" than people who are supposed to be the face of their company or undertake jobs with learning curves. There's plenty of scope for online services to improve the hiring of the latter, but it's still going to entail longer term contracts and often more regular working hours, and often better comparative performance metrics than a skewed star rating system.
I always found the narration of Uber the Underdog going against the Evil Taxi Mafia to be funny. In reality, the only mafia-like player in this story is Uber - the multinational corporation that fights against multitude of small local players.
But yeah, I guess both your narrative and the one you counter are equally detached from the real reality
So? The fact that the business might by people using it as a front for money laundering is immaterial because it does not affect how they do business, how they treat customers or how they treat employees. Letting your money laundering workflow impact your business is how you get caught laundering money.
Why not permanently employ them? Should be cheaper in the long run.
I have a friend who owns a small family business in France. He's doing well. He would have enough work to take on extra staff, except that he claims the local worker protection legislation mean that it's not worth it, particularly since he wouldn't be able to get rid of anyone if he hasn't got the work for them.
So, he'd rather work himself and family members extra hard, than employ anyone new.
>> Should be cheaper in the long run.
Except if the politicians in charge make sure it's not. See above.
In other words, the compensation for end-of-contract is just 2% of the salary of the worker per month. If the benefits of having a worker is more than 2% of their salary, it's worth it.
But to avoid deviating from the topic: the gig economy is not about small family businesses. Gig economy is a buzzword used by companies that could pay decent salaries and worker protections but are too dominated by greed to do it.
I presume French businesspeople aren’t fools and
their extreme reluctance to hire is rational.
You gotta learn what legislation applies to you now and start following it. Gotta pay people regularly, instead of when it's convenient for you. Gotta have policies for things like expenses and sick leave and holiday and car use and overtime and bribery and dress code. Gotta apply the policies consistently and fairly. Gotta get them work space and equipment and maybe parking. Maybe you need to provide training. Gotta to figure out how to put job ads into the newspaper or whatever your industry is doing these days. Gotta decide what sort of interview questions you're going to ask...
I can be fired with one month warning, and I have the same one month notice if I want to quit. That seems fair for both parties.
I expect we're going to see more niche gig-economy businesses being built around more complex workflows with higher skilled labor. Lots of B2B and B2C potential when you break up services into smaller tasks that can be fulfilled. Success is providing the benefits of scale without the challenge of doing it yourself.