Ride share drivers might be facing strong headwinds as the country’s inflationary economy transitions to recession and unemployment numbers seems destined to spike.
The Biden administration is nearly out of horn players as it works in vain to paint a miserable economy in the best possible terms.
October’s jobs report heralded the addition of 261,000 jobs, much better than the 193,000 expected by economists but understated was this fact: 60% of the job growth came from the lower paying services sector. That’s a problem called unhealthy job growth.
Lower paying services include retail, travel (including ride-share drivers) and entertainment – mostly because those are consumer-driven industries and consumers tend to be the last to recognize an economic hurricane before landfall.
Historically, whenever the lower paying services sector starts to account for 60% or more of the jobs being created, the labor market starts to sink shortly after. It happened in mid 2000 before labor tumbled in early 2001, it happened in early 2007 and by mid 2007 the once strong labor market was having its roof pulled away.
When the bulk of new jobs are low paying ones, the labor market is at risk of being swept away.
Just look at what is already happening at Amazon, Apple – who have both paused hiring. Twitter is very visibly reducing its workforce by 50%. Lyft just laid off 13% of its workers, and Coca-Cola is offering voluntary buyouts.
I can see further instability in my riders. They can’t afford … or find … a new or used car, so they are spending an hour of pay getting to work via Uber, and another hour of pay getting home; netting them 6 hours of pay … 30 hours net per week – that’s analogous to part time work.
Here’s to hoping we all prepare for the storm, save now … and weather the storm when it hits.
We’re in anything BUT a healthy economy.
Vote.
Driving the Daisy's 