In A Backlash To The Gig Economy, Hiring Employees Is Cool Again In Silicon Valley

The on-demand economy has given rise to the on-demand worker. Startups like ride-hailing app Uber, courier service Postmates, cleaning services Handy and Homejoy, and grocery delivery app Instacart don’t hire employees. Instead, they act as marketplaces for labor, where every task is a separate transaction between a customer and a member of a distributed workforce. But a new wave of app-based service businesses are rejecting this workforce strategy.

Like their peers who dole out jobs by the gig, these apps empower customers to do everything from order lunch to get their laundry done with the push of a button. At the other end of their buttons, however, are actual employees who make the deliveries, do the cleaning, and run the errands, even if those tasks are doled out by apps.