
How the gig economy is making life harder for North American workers - raleighm
https://www.macleans.ca/society/how-the-growing-gig-economy-is-making-life-harder-for-north-american-workers/
======
peterwwillis
The gig economy is literally a product of a lack of economic security. As I've
mentioned before, if suddenly people had enough money or assistance that they
didn't need to gig to make ends meet, businesses like Uber and Lyft would have
no more "independent contractors". They'd probably fold or have to raise
prices above that of Taxis.

~~~
vertexFarm
It's absolutely a desperation career. Those always exist somewhere in any
economy, and arguably there should be options available for desperate people,
but the sheer volume of them is getting sad. It's like the US has a very poor,
developing country double-exposed over an insanely wealthy and advanced one,
both occupying the same territory. I'm not a historian but it strikes me as
very strange and somewhat new to the world.

~~~
jjoske
Actually I suspect this has been somewhat the norm through out history, and
the last 50-100 years have been some what odd.

~~~
adrianratnapala
Yes, but the "norm through out history" of course contains a lot of
variations.

If you look at the UK or US during the Industrial Revolution (or China today)
you will see poor people doing hard jobs and its all part of a huge economic
build-up that makes everyone richer -- even if some people at the top could
skim off fortunes.

But if you look at even broader history, such as Medieval Europe, or China and
India for most of their history, you will still see industrious poor people.
But there's little build-up -- just skimming by the people at the top.

I think modern India is somewhere in between those two modes. And sometimes I
fear that western democracies are converging on the same in-between place, but
from the other side.

------
marsrover
> On average, it estimated they were making $10.75 per hour in the Houston
> area, $8.77 per hour in Detroit, and $13.17 in Denver, which was slightly
> less than Walmart’s average full-time hourly rate in 2016

I'm not saying this is ok, but I think there are also more intangible things
that come into play here. Working for Uber gives you the freedom to work when
you want. You don't have to call in sick or find someone to take your shift.
You just don't get in the car that day.

Which really, I think, is the allure of a lot of gig jobs: the ability to be
your own boss (kinda).

~~~
JansjoFromIkea
It's the allure for sure but I imagine quite quickly gets proven wrong as you
find yourself working certain hours due to higher rates and/or increased
demand. With wages that low (these are Uber's own figures too) and close to no
upward mobility career wise, it seems like a colossal dead end one could
easily become trapped in.

I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of drivers failed to adequately budget for
the maintenance costs of their car being used that more heavily too, which
could abruptly land them in the red when a garage bill comes in.

~~~
dionidium
_> I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of drivers failed to adequately budget for
the maintenance costs of their car_

Nearly _every car owner_ fails to adequately budget for (or even understand)
the full cost of ownership of their car :)

Edit: I forgot my audience for a second. Guys, college-educated _engineers_
and 1% _developers_ aren't _typical_. People routinely fail to properly
account for the TCO. The entire auto-sales model is centered around tricking
people into accepting terms worse than the perceived TCO. Don't worry. I
wasn't talking about _you_.

~~~
gruez
>The entire auto-sales model is centered around tricking people into accepting
terms worse than the perceived TCO.

how? you mean long auto loan periods?

~~~
mamon
Rather, warranty that comes with mandatory technical inspections at authorized
repair shops that cost you fortune, original spare parts that cost you another
fortune, not to mention things like upgrading maps in your built in navigation
system for 300 USD.

------
lynnah
Disheartening. Interesting article. We need to get healthcare uncoupled from
jobs.

~~~
srslymissng
We need to stop importing children and adults until we make sure all current
citizens have jobs. Not everyone has cancer nor needs healthcare. The truly
broke get it for free. Only thing not covered is cosmetic dentistry like non
silver fillings and partial dentures and brand name medication.

~~~
d4mi3n
I hear immigration come up a lot when healthcare does, but most homeless in
the US are US citizens suffering from mental disorders. From the numbers I've
read, immigrants tend to be the most economically productive compared to US
citizens of the same economic class.

That said, I think it'd be cheaper to provide preventative care for free than
it would be to cover ER visits for the same number of uninsured people. Tends
to be cheaper and a bit more humane.

~~~
tankerslay
Our system is such a disaster, even "preventative care" can be a wolf in
sheep's clothing. There's basically nothing to disincentivize doctors or
pharma from aggressively selling drugs and procedures that give no benefit or
even cause harm.

------
gumby
For non-speakers of American English: though "gig" is well known to mean
"short-term/casual work", the use of "gigged" in the title is likely a pun:
"gigging" or "to gig" is to hunt small game with a pronged spear:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigging](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigging)

A usage which sadly underlines the fate of most gig workers.

------
expertentipp
Keep this gig economy thing away from me. Companies promoting this business
model (whether car lifting, food delivery, or temporary housing) are
exploiting all parties involved, while damaging the local environment.
Everyone, except them, is getting the short end of the stick.

------
aphextron
Have you eaten in at a take out place lately? It's literally nothing but
ageing, disheveled looking people who could barely operate a smartphone
running in and out desperately, working either Uber Eats, Doordash, etc.
stacking orders, getting stressed out over maybe making $3. It's the most
depressing fucking thing I have ever seen.

Maybe there's an argument to be made that these people are better off than
they would be otherwise. But I'm not so sure it's that simple. You have this
zero sum game where the health and well being of humanity is being arbitraged
for VC profits and increased efficiency for the restaurant owner.

~~~
adrianratnapala
> _But I 'm not so sure it's that simple._

At this point I was expecting an explanation of how an similar number of low-
skilled people would have jobs if these services didn't exist.

Instead you give the unexplained assertion

> _You have this zero sum game ..._

Which game is it? Who are the players? What is zero-sum about it?

~~~
aphextron
>Which game is it? Who are the players? What is zero-sum about it?

It's the same game they're playing with AirBnB, Uber, etc. Just openly break
the law and subvert centuries of built up labor laws and protections we've
created to make America into a livable society, just to profit a small
minority of shareholders. The players are the American people, with no choice
left but live with this system because more equitable uses of this capital
aren't perceived to give investors "10x returns". There used to be an
agreement in the US between Capital and Labor that struck a fair deal, and
this agreement has fundamentally eroded. What benefits and rights that did
still exist in jobs up to this point are gone for most people. The result is a
zero sum game, where human suffering is converted to shareholder profits.

~~~
briandear
Tell me about taxi drivers and labor law. I used to drive a taxi and I paid
$110 per day to rent the taxi, paid the gas, if I damaged the car, I paid for
that out of my pocket and then I get to try and hustle rides from the airport
where I had to pay for ticket for the right to pick up a passenger — then, due
to airport fixed rates, I might drive that person to the other side of town
and make $65.

Driving a taxi was horrible. Anyone that laments Uber has never driven a taxi.

------
mikece
On the one hand my first impulse is to ask “What’s the supply-side version of
_caveat emptor_?” but if companies like Uber are hiding the true pay of their
IRS-1099 “gig workers” then I have to wonder if they aren’t running afoul of
disclosure or fair labor laws as well.

~~~
dredmorbius
_What’s the supple-side version of caveat emptor?_

How do you mean?

"Employer beware" would be _cave dico_. Provider beware, _provisor cave_.

Though it's not clear what dynamic you're pointing to.

~~~
wh313
Actually employer beware would be "cave conductor". Dico means "I say".

Provisor comes from the verb vidi, and means "one who sees ahead," but I
suppose you can use "patronus" instead to mean provider. So provider beware
should be "cave patrone".

~~~
dredmorbius
Granted my Latin's weak. I was more interested in meaning than the linguistics
lesson.

------
anovikov
I never had a full time job, and i think of it as of a very, very odd thing. I
know there are areas where it is necessary (say upper levels of management,
public servants, and doctors in areas of healthcare where it's all about
collective efforts, not private practice).

But for the most people, being full time is nothing but a form of
psychological exploitation. People were generationally taught to value the
(false) sense of stability it provides in return for being paid much less, and
many social institutions such as mortgages, were built on top of that to
reinforce, and take advantage of, that odd thing.

If it dies for about 80% of population i'll see it as a benefit, and i feel
totally comfortable with it. I fully realise that i am totally unemployable as
i am: hiring me full time and paying me what i make will be simply
unprofitable for almost every potential boss. And many better qualified people
than me 'happily' work for the fraction of what i make because they are
addicted to these guaranteed twice a month paychecks, unable to imagine their
life without these 'guarantees', which are nothing but guaranteed misery.

And yes i am 38 and have a family.

~~~
dev_north_east
> the (false) sense of stability it provides

What's false about it?

~~~
anovikov
Essentially, this is because the companies themselves are living for much
shorter than they used to. And their 'useful lives' (when working there can
provide for any career advancement, improving one's skills, personal growth)
is even shorter.

------
brohoolio
What’s going to happen to gig wages when the economy hits a recession?

~~~
abvdasker
If there is anything beautiful about Uber it's that the marketplace maintained
in each city is a relatively pure expression of supply and demand.

A recession in which unemployment rates increase would probably lead to an
increase in drivers (supply) from the displaced employees and a decrease in
people with disposable income to take Ubers (demand) leading to a reduction in
cost per ride and the associated driver wages (unit price). Given the sheer
number of countries Uber operates in, the company has probably already seen
this happen more than once. What happens to driver wages and Uber as a company
in the event of a global recession is harder to predict since that would be
unprecedented for the company.

Maybe having Uber available as a source of income during a recession would be
a good thing for the recently unemployed?

~~~
downrightmike
People have a tendency to stay home more and "nest" during a recession. Or if
they do go out, like in the last recession, people went to the movies. Which
is why theaters rebounded in 2009-2010.

------
carapace
Reminds me of "The Market Fairy Will Not Solve the Problems of Uber and Lyft":

> Here is the thing about Uber and Lyft (and much of the “sharing economy”).

> They don’t pay the cost of their capital.

> The wages they pay to their drivers are less than the depreciation of the
> cars and the expense of keeping the drivers fed, housed, and healthy. They
> pay less than minimum wage in most markets, and, in most markets, that is
> not enough to pay the costs of a car plus a human.

[http://www.ianwelsh.net/the-market-fairy-will-not-solve-
the-...](http://www.ianwelsh.net/the-market-fairy-will-not-solve-the-problems-
of-uber-and-lyft/)?

Like with the electric scooter companies. You're not paying for the scooter,
you can buy one of those. You're paying for the service of being able to leave
your scooter in public somewhere and have someone else collect and recharge
it.

------
sjg007
Success but by your own bootstrap. Hell hath no fury if you unionize.

------
crankylinuxuser
This really needs reposted:

Uber is an Old Scam:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGwZcR0q6VE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGwZcR0q6VE)

Seriously, watch the video. Professor Richard D Wolff.

Long story short, when taxis first came out, we saw the following: unsafe
everything, assaults, kidnappings (pay more or you get dropped in
$bad_location), wrecks and injuries and no insurance. The result of that was
regulation, which improved conditions for riders and drivers both, but raising
the bottom line.

It's only time until the regulation hammer hits Uber and similar businesses.

~~~
roenxi
The gentleman in the video has a couple of good points (and it is likely that
Uber will eventually get regulated). That being said, the premise here seems
to be confused on a number of issues.

\+ "Unsafe everything, assaults [and] kidnappings" are in fact already
illegal. More regulation will not make them more illegal. Claiming we need a
taxicab commission to enforce basic laws is a non-sequitur of breathtaking
scope.

\+ There was a vibe that Uber will compromise the customer experience to make
more money. This is nonsense, uber is operating in a cut-throat environment
where any cost savings will be passed directly to consumers who are getting
what they pay for. As one questioner pointed out at the end, Uber isn't
actually making a profit. Any cuts in quality are being passed on to the
customer in reduced fares.

\+ Insufficient insurance. This one is one that is up for debate; but the
message of 'insurance good, profit bad' is probably oversimplifying the issue
and likely pushing an outcome where everyone has to pay more for transport
without a proportional improvement in outcomes. The speaker might feel better
about that, but I doubt the Uber passengers would.

~~~
crankylinuxuser
\+ "Unsafe everything, assaults [and] kidnappings" are in fact already
illegal. More regulation will not make them more illegal. Claiming we need a
taxicab commission to enforce basic laws is a non-sequitur of breathtaking
scope.

Indeed they are already illegal, however adequate checks are not done on those
who want to be people driver. That effect of not actually doing due diligence
does allow much higher incidence of bad actors in positions of power.

\+ There was a vibe that Uber will compromise the customer experience to make
more money. This is nonsense, uber is operating in a cut-throat environment
where any cost savings will be passed directly to consumers who are getting
what they pay for.

Bullshit. They have one of the hottest stock request IPOs out there. A year
ago their estimated market cap was $50B. Now its estimated at $70B. Sure
doesn't sound like a no-profit company.

+As one questioner pointed out at the end, Uber isn't actually making a
profit. Any cuts in quality are being passed on to the customer in reduced
fares.

Hollywood accounting. And foregoing profit to starve the market is also a
perfectly valid strategy. In other words, the lack of profit is intentional
and easily reversed at will.

~~~
roenxi
> Indeed they are already illegal, however adequate checks are not done on
> those who want to be people driver. That effect of not actually doing due
> diligence does allow much higher incidence of bad actors in positions of
> power.

You're going to need actual statistics for that. Claiming that we can detect a
class of people who are acceptable citizens except under the specific
circumstance that they are acting as a chauffeur isn't a reasonable position.
Either they are dangerous and should be locked up or they aren't. Their status
as a taxicab driver isn't going to be relevant. They would be just as
dangerous if they were unemployed, if not more so.

> Bullshit. They have one of the hottest stock request IPOs out there. A year
> ago their estimated market cap was $50B. Now its estimated at $70B. Sure
> doesn't sound like a no-profit company.

Pretty sure the profit line is in the red for 2017. You might find yourself on
the wrong side of the facts here, even if they don't conform to your
worldview.

> Hollywood accounting.

Always willing to be corrected, but Hollywood accounting is a fairly specific
practice where they claim specific projects made a loss so they don't have to
pay the actors, but the profits still appear in a different part of a
controlled conglomerate.

What you are alleging is tax fraud, which is also illegal as it happens. And,
again, nothing to do with regulation of the taxi industry, in America I
believe it is an issue for the the IRS. Companies in competitive markets have
a lousy track record of unilaterally deciding their profits need to be higher.
Its investors believe Uber can make a profit, but there isn't any evidence of
that yet. They are taking a pretty substantial risk.

------
suyash
This is only the beginning, automation is coming fast to disrupt gig workers,
then situation will be worse.

