Last week Uber announced Uber Works, a platform that connects workers with businesses that need to fill available shifts in hourly jobs such as cooks, warehouse workers, commercial cleaners and events staffing.
Uber's chart below (click to enlarge) provides their quick description of the service.
Uber is partnering with staffing firms for this effort. The staffing firm partners will employ, pay and handle worker benefits.
This, of course, means Uber will not have to deal with the employee classification or other legal issues they faces in their ride hailing business.
Uber betting that their technology will provide value to workers, the companies that employ them and the staffing agencies that place them.
They point out in their blog post announcing the service that temp workers currently struggle with rigid scheduling and a lack of information on what jobs are available and how much they pay. They claim Uber Works will fix these problems.
For businesses, Uber says they can provide a broader pool of potential temp workers and simplify the hiring and payment of these workers. Staffing firms benefit from more placements and better information flow.
Uber's obviously not the only company offering this type of platform.
Wonolo, Snag and Moonlighting all have similar platforms in the sense that they offer businesses access to shift workers.
Also, Shfitgig, which recently pivoted away from connecting workers to jobs, now offers staffing firms a technology platform that claims to provide many of the features Uber is offering.
And, of course, several of the large staffing firms are trying to provide similar online staffing platforms.
This includes Uber's first staffing firm partner, True Blue. Their platform, Job Stack, seems to be quite similar to Uber Works.
So there's a lot of competition for Uber Works.
But the market is also huge. According to the Staffing Industry Analysts, the global staffing industry generated $490 billion in revenue in 2018.
This, coupled with Uber's brand recognition and technology skills, means they could easily be successful.
Uber Works is currently only available in the Chicago area. Uber says they will roll it out to more cities in the near future.
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