iSelect just completed an investment round in Popbookings, a company that is working to streamline the temporary employment market. Its first focus is in the event-staffing segment, and its tools automate the entire hiring, scheduling, attendance, payroll, and performance reporting processes for both employers and 1099 employees.
iSelect invested because the PopBookings team is terrific and they are going after a growing market. But I was first intrigued when I met PopBookings because I couldn’t figure out if the part-time labor market is a feature or a bug in the current labor markets…
- Are employers hiring less or do employees want to do something different?
- Is automation increasing consumer welfare, so we can get more value for a fraction of the work effort?
- Can we use our iPads to shop, work a 35-hour week, and get more out of life?
- We worked 100 hours each week on the farm before factories and 40 hours a week since. Our standard of living has increased. Do we need to work less to get more?
Maybe the part-time economy is the leading edge of what is next. I don’t know, but this is what I am reading to figure it out:
- This is Probably a Good Time to Say That I Don’t Believe Robots Will Eat All the Jobs
- How technological innovation can massively reduce the cost of living
- Inside the mind of Marc Andreessen
- We Don’t Really Need More Jobs
- What Does the Unemployment Rate Measure?
- The End of Labor: How to Protect Workers From the Rise of Robots
- Does the United States have a productivity slowdown or a measurement problem?
- You Don’t Get The Creation Without The Destruction
- Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: The Astonishing Voice of Albert Hirschman
- US economic growth in the gilded age
- Will Productivity Growth Leave Us Motherless?
Other things I learned this week:
- Elephants can swim
- Cows get struck by lightning
- The human body contains 2 to 6 pounds of bacteria
- Egg farmers kill male chicks at birth because they can’t lay eggs
Happy Bastille Day
