Bloomberg Businessweek – April 18, 2019
On a busy Friday night during the 2018 holiday season at the San Francisco restaurant Frances, chef and owner Melissa Perello faced a potential disaster. A dishwasher hadn’t shown up for work, and she was already down a person in the kitchen. “I got on the Pared app,” she recalls. “And 35 minutes later, a dishwasher walked in the door.”
The promise of the gig economy is of working on a schedule of your own choosing. Does controlling their own time actually make gig workers better off? Using extensive data on Uber drivers, Yale SOM’s Judith Chevalier and her co-authors examined their driving patterns to understand the economic value of flexible scheduling. They found that rideshare drivers would have to earn as much as double to accept less-flexible arrangements.
Uber now lets women drivers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia opt to pick up women passengers.
Last year, Lyft investigated reports that its workers abused access to customer data, using their powers to stalk lovers and snoop on celebrities. Thankfully, the ride-hailing service has implemented changes since then: According to The Information, when a Lyft employee or contractor looks up rider details these days, they’ll see a warning message reminding them that their actions are logged and could be audited.
Many entrepreneurs have transformed garages into squeaky office chair- and computer-equipped startup centers. It’s well-traveled territory for businesses getting their start. Joe Colangelo’s own startup story has a twist on that trope: His business began in his driveway. There was a car parked in it, and not even his own
Like most girls who grew up with dreams of a career on Broadway, Stephanie Cowan is familiar with Dolly Parton’s work. But she also knows the cardinal lie it tells: “Working nine to five”? That’s a way to make a living? Maybe in Parton’s time, but not in 2019—when all’s not so fair in love, war, and the gig economy.
A few years ago, the financial services giant Prudential released a report looking at the financial security of people working in the gig economy. It found that not only are gig workers in the U.S. earning around 58% of what those in full-time jobs earn, they miss out on the employer-sponsored benefits such as healthcare and pension policies.
Lyft is beefing up its driver background check process with two new features it says are intended to “[improve] the safety and security of [its] platform.” It today announced continuous background checks and enhanced identity verification, both of which will roll out in the coming days to weeks
Lyft is beefing up its driver background check process with two new features it says are intended to “[improve] the safety and security of [its] platform.” It today announced continuous background checks and enhanced identity verification, both of which will roll out in the coming days to weeks
The Florida House of Representatives approved a bill Thursday that would allow ridesharing companies like Uber and Lyft to provide non-emergency medical transportation for Medicaid patients.
