

Can startups fight unemployment? Introducing Work for America - anandkulkarni
http://blog.mobileworks.com/can-startups-fight-unemployment-introducing-w

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anandkulkarni
You might also say that startups fight unemployment already, by creating a
cadre of jobs. They do, but most of that impact is felt in the neighborhoods
of the startups -- Silicon Valley runs an unemployment rate of as low as 4%
vs. 7.8% nationally.

Sending work to job training programs in the rest of the country lets us share
the love a bit.

~~~
bostonpete
> Silicon Valley runs an unemployment rate of as low as 4% vs. 7.8%
> nationally.

Where did that stat come from? According to this story, Silicon Valley had a
higher than average unemployment rate as of last summer:

[http://news.yahoo.com/selfish-silicon-valley-higher-
average-...](http://news.yahoo.com/selfish-silicon-valley-higher-average-
unemployment-rate-195823123.html)

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cabbeer
Temp work is bad in the long term. Employers do not have to provide benefits
for temporary employees, and they also have access to less privileges from the
government. This approach is a race to the bottom IMO.

~~~
cesarpereira
"Temp work is bad in the long term."

I'm not trying to be an anus, but temp stands for temporary which is not long
term. It looks like they are looking to improve individual skills that are in
demand in order to progress to a full-time job. Once they have relevant actual
experience with companies it will be much easier to find a long term
employment situation.

~~~
scarmig
I mean, in storybook land this is how things should work.

But in the recent past, the most recent decade especially, companies have
infamously been using temp jobs as a means to get around paying full-time
salaries and benefits perpetually. Same with internships. For lower level
white-collar workers, the progression isn't from temp job to permanent job but
temp job to temp job to temp job to early underfunded retirement.

Not that I see an easy way out of this--companies of all sorts are driven to
this behavior inexorably by the market--but people genuinely interested in
transitioning to a better economy for everyone have to look at this fact head
on.

~~~
cesarpereira
In real life land, people are responsible for their own careers. Temp jobs are
an option if a worker so chooses and not a cure all. If a temp job to get a
temp paycheck to get temp experience does not help fulfill their goals then
they should not choose it.

~~~
_delirium
Many forces shaping employment options are considerably larger than any one
individual's choices about their own career, so I think it's fair (and
important) to look at systemic trends, and what effect they have. Of course,
in the short term, each person _also_ has to make their own decisions with the
systemic factors as they currently exist, so I don't entirely disagree.

~~~
cesarpereira
I agree with you that there are many forces that shape options, but my
original point was that temp work is an option. My original reply was to
someone that threw out a blanket statement that all temp work was bad in the
long term. Surely there are some temp workers that can benefit in the long
term from the skills that they will learn and the additional income.

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Apocryphon
This seems like the sort of endeavor that healthcare reform would ostensibly
serve for- by providing a broad solution that an enterprising organization or
effort like this can stick on to provide insurance for those who sign up.

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super-serial
These jobs are all things I would outsource to Amazon MTurk for cheap. (and
you can specify US ONLY too)

Yet no one claims using the MTURK API helps others "develop employable job
skills"... website testing, cheap content writing and data entry aren't
exactly the types of skills employers are unable to find when hiring.

~~~
Cyranix
How does this compare price-wise to MTurk, out of curiosity?

~~~
anandkulkarni
In unmanaged marketplaces like Mechanical Turk, some new entrant will always
try do the work no matter how low you price it, and they'll usually do it
wrong.

This means you end up running it repeatedly to get the right results,
engineering safeguards against malicious or underpaid workers, and more.

Because MobileWorks is managed and not a marketplace, you pay a fixed price
with no engineering cost.

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redwood
How about creating a temp firm/staffing agency branded for ethical treatment,
real benefits, focus on keeping people in longer-term roles. Then if tech
companies used them first, even if they cost a bit more, they could feel good.
Tax law should perhaps incentivize contractors receiving benefits.

~~~
anandkulkarni
MobileWorks actually does this explicitly, as a crowdsourcing company, rather
than a temp agency. We find that it leads to better outcomes for workers and
customers alike.

Most of our workforce consists of long-term participants working under real
names in exchange for a fair wage guarantee.

It'd be great to see something equivalent emerge in the temping sector.

~~~
redwood
Ingeresting thanks, I'll check you guys out. Do you provide medical insurance?
Anyway I do think you can do a lot more with people working in person with you
but then again the worls gets smaller all the time. If folks can do in depth
training and quality control in a distributed fashion, more power to em!

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johnobrien1010
I mean, I started job-buddy.com to help the unemployed. That's something...

~~~
ValG
This looks pretty cool. Tell me more about it. email in my profile.

~~~
johnobrien1010
I thought it was pretty self explanatory, actually... What did you want to
know?

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wavesounds
"Data entry" is "Job Training"? Seriously?

Couldn't this result in bad publicity? "Hot startup XYZ said they'd train me
to get a job in tech and all I did was data entry for 3 months and I still
can't get a job"

~~~
anandkulkarni
Nope! But data entry can be meaningful work experience for someone new to the
working world. [thanks to _dps for the clarification!]

This is the practical work component of a larger curriculum carried out by
civic job training programs. These programs conclude with job placement, so
the startups involved simply donate work and forget about it.

~~~
_dps
FWIW, I personally don't think you need to dodge the "data entry as job
training" angle.

It's easy for us on HN to feel uncomfortable about this because we see data
entry as among the lowest jobs one could have in the IT ecosystem. But I'd ask
the audience to consider this from the point of view of someone down-and-out
in the job market (I'm sure you yourself have already entertained similar
thoughts). I'll share a personal anecdote on this point: a good friend of mine
once suffered from a medical condition that prevented him from pursuing a
traditional career for a period of several years, and the availability of 2-3
month data entry gigs was the difference between complete professional
inactivity and:

1) proving to someone that despite his condition he could show up on time to a
job with bounded time commitments and execute his job

2) having an income at all, and the self respect that goes with that

3) having a professional network, unsophisticated though it might be, that can
say "Yes, Person X can handle taking your paper legal documents and getting
the relevant fields mapped into an Access database".

My friend found a leg up through such a job and overcame some of the
unemployment adversity imposed by a personal medical problem. I imagine others
could find a leg up to overcome poor family circumstances, lack of educational
opportunity, or other impediments to establishing one's career.

I personally think there's nothing wrong with providing opportunities near the
bottom of the ladder and calling them job training, because an important
portion of job training at that level is the meta-skill of showing up, doing
what you promised, and establishing credibility with people who can vouch for
you down the line.

