Gig work isn’t typically viewed as a professional career path. But hey, the times they are a changin’.
The pandemic spurred massive growth in gig opportunities for logistics, warehousing, and transport roles — and there are now an estimated 500m temp workers globally.
Per TechCrunch, Madrid-based Jobandtalent — a workforce as a service platform for temps to find, apply, and get paid for employment — is now raising $108m to capitalize on the trend.
Jobandtalent experienced the surge in growth firsthand
The startup hit an impressive $600m+ in revenue, and the number of workers on its platform (80k+ in 2020) is doubling annually.
Jobandtalent operates across Europe and LatAm with plans for US expansion and has 750+ employers on its platform, including heavy hitters like eBay, Huawei, Bayer, and XPO.
But going high tech comes with high hurdles
The company’s goal to make temp work so constant it becomes “perm” requires using algorithms to judge productivity and match workers with employers at scale.
Unfortunately for Jobandtalent, European regulators aren’t big fans of algorithms:
- An Italian court recently ruled a reputation-ranking algorithm used by Deliveroo discriminated against workers.
- Uber and Ola are facing legal challenges in the Netherlands for use of algorithms in managing drivers.
While legal challenges may prove problematic in the future, for now Jobandtalent’s landed itself a solid gig.
