The Present and Future of On-Demand Work Platforms
How had I forgotten about Wonolo?
A recent NPR/Marist poll suggests that 20% of US jobs are filled by contractors, workers that are hired on to a particular project, for a specific period of time, or on a discontinuous basis, and not as full-time, permanent employees. This ranges from Uber drivers to your cleaning lady, and also includes highly skilled-knowledge workers in tech companies. More than 120,000 of Google workers are contractors, compared with just over 100,000 full-time employees. This trend is growing, and not going to go away. Yes, there will have to be major social readjustments — since these contractors generally receive no benefits, and are skimping on saving for retirement — but the economic rationale for workforce agility and flexibility for employers currently holds sway.
In her annual Internet Trends presentation, venture capitalist Mary Meeker explored this trend and the emergence of on-demand work platforms that promise to take the friction out of companies finding contract workers. Before zooming into that, though, I thought…
