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Although I like using Uber as a customer: > "Uber is creating 20,000 jobs per month, the company said in a blog post." Really? "Jobs" as in W-2 forms and heal
by 6cxs2hd6 12y ago
Although I like using Uber as a customer:
> "Uber is creating 20,000 jobs per month, the company said in a blog post."
Really? "Jobs" as in W-2 forms and health benefits? Or independent contractors?
Not that the latter are necessarily bad, but they're fundamentally different. It is misleading to call them "jobs" in their blog headline, then switch to "partners" and "small business entrepreneurs" in the text.[1]
I understand that traditional taxi drivers don't have "jobs", either, and Uber might be a better client for a contractor than traditional taxi companies. But that's beside the point I'm talking about, which is unwelcome and deceptive PR spin.
[1]: http://blog.uber.com/uberimpact http://blog.uber.com/uberimpact
- conistonwater 12y agoThe whole "creating jobs" narrative is a bit odd. It's not like the people working for Uber would have just sat on their hands otherwise. They would have found something else to do.
- _delirium 12y agoSome of them would've even been doing a pretty similar thing. To the extent that part of Uber's growth is through taking market share from competitors in the car-driving-for-money sector, they're shifting jobs between companies, not creating new ones. Some may also come from expanding the size of the whole market, but you can't just count the total number of employees and use that number as the net-jobs-created.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- jessriedel 12y agoI'd agree that "job" should imply "full time job" unless explicitly qualified; otherwise hiring 10 people for 4 hours a week would be 10 jobs rather than 1. But I can't see "job" why it should mean "job at an enterprise organization", which as far as I can tell is what you imply with W2s and health benefits. There are millions of Americans who are self-employed, file their own taxes, and have (unfortunately very expensive) individual health insurance. It would be bizarre to say they shouldn't be counted toward headlines statistics like "economy grows by 20,000 jobs".