Gig Economy to the Rescue For Job Seekers In Current Public Health Crisis

Financialnewsmedia.com News Commentary

PALM BEACH, Florida, March 20, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The GIG Economy is a labor market characterized by the prevalence of short-term contracts or freelance work as opposed to permanent jobs. Uber and Lyft, have been connecting riders with drivers for some time now and now other apps are focusing on opening up more jobs for under, unemployed or laid-off workers in the restaurant industry during this public health crisis. The Wall Street Journal, in an article titled, The Gig Economy to the Rescue: The flexibility of app services is helping millions in the panic, recently said: "Americans have been urged to "social distance" and… to self-quarantine. A decade ago this would have been unpleasant but also impractical for most people. Fortunately, there's now an app, or many, many apps, for that… Uber and Lyft launched the so-called gig economy a decade ago with apps that connect riders with drivers. These (new) apps now let customers order rides, groceries and food delivery through their smartphones."  Active companies in the markets this week include ShiftPixy, Inc. (NASDAQ: PIXY), Grubhub Inc. (NYSE: GRUB), Slack Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: WORK), Uber Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: UBER), Lyft, Inc. (NASDAQ: LYFT).

As a result of the public health crisis, a restaurant's only means of generating revenue are to ramp up "to-go" orders, or to create a delivery program using their employees or third party services. The demand for delivery services has started to rise and with it, opportunities for gig work. A recent insider article addressed this growing demand: "With restaurant workers finding themselves with fewer hours and lost wages, DoorDash stated yesterday that it will be creating a "priority access program" to help workers at their restaurant partners sign up as delivery workers, "enabling them to meet their financial needs until their jobs return to normal."  "This crisis is really a breakout moment for gig companies and for delivery companies in particular," says Julia Pollak, an economist at ZipRecruiter. "That shift to e-commerce, which was already happening very rapidly, is just going to accelerate."

ShiftPixy, Inc. (NASDAQ: PIXY) BREAKING NEWS:  ShiftPixy Enables Restaurant Operators to Stay Connected to Customers through Self-Delivery During Coronavirus Pandemic - ShiftPixy, Inc. (NASDAQ: PIXY), a California-based gig engagement platform provider, today discussed the Company's increased levels of inbound interest due to the current COVID-19 pandemic.

"As you can imagine, we are busy responding to many inquiries from most of the national brands, all of which are trying to keep their employees busy and connected to their store, and wish to use our self-delivery platform to stay connected with customers," stated ShiftPixy's co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Scott Absher. "In response to the pandemic, major cities including Los Angeles, New York City and Seattle have banned dine-in restaurants, restricting businesses to takeout and delivery exclusively. Using ShiftPixy's driver management technology, restaurant operators can control delivery with their own staff without having to deal with the uncertainties of third-party delivery services. In partnership with ShiftPixy, these restaurants can train their staff to act as delivery drivers – repurposing their existing human capital while adjusting to the current needs of the marketplace."

Mr. Absher concluded, "Coronavirus is hitting all aspects of society hard, and restaurants have had a particularly rough time. Our technology provides a native delivery opportunity to allow multi-unit operators to remain operational in this very challenging environment."

ShiftPixy's platform includes two layers: the first revolves around building operators a robust, easy-to-use digital ordering platform that boosts customer engagement and spending, while the second handles driver management, intercepting online orders, finding a designated driver, creating a driver route, and communicating with the customer as the order is completed. Read this and more news for ShiftPixy at: https://www.financialnewsmedia.com/news-pixy/  http://www.marketnewsupdates.com/news/pixy.html

Other recent developments in the markets this week include:

Grubhub Inc. (NYSE: GRUB) In collaboration with the mayors of large cities across the United States who are on the front lines of the COVID-19 response efforts, Grubhub recently announced it is temporarily suspending collection of up to $100 million in commission payments from impacted independent restaurants nationwide. Grubhub's initiative will provide immediate and substantial cash flow relief to qualified independent restaurants – restaurants that make up the majority of Grubhub's 350,000+ restaurant community and drive more than 80 percent of the company's orders.

Matt Maloney, Grubhub Founder and CEO said: "Independent restaurants are the lifeblood of our cities and feed our communities. They have been amazing long-term partners for us, and we wanted to help them in their time of need. Our business is their business – so this was an easy decision for us to make."

Slack Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: WORK) recently reported financial results for its fourth quarter and fiscal year ended January 31, 2020. "We continue to see significant momentum in our enterprise business and finished the year with 70 customers spending more than $1 million annually on Slack, up 79% year-over-year," said Stewart Butterfield, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder at Slack. "As the shift from email to channel-based messaging platforms continues, the largest companies around the world are choosing to standardize on Slack because of our enterprise-grade scalability, security, open platform, ease-of-use and innovative roadmap."

"We finished the year with 110,000 paid customers and 893 customers spending more than $100,000 annually with Slack," said Allen Shim, Chief Financial Officer at Slack. "Slack has created a new category of enterprise software and companies large and small are choosing us to enable a better way of working, with unique-to-Slack features including shared channels and Workflow Builder. While we invest in innovation and delivering more value to our customers, we also are showing significant leverage and remain on track to hit our growth phase target of free cash flow positive."

Uber Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: UBER) and Lyft, Inc. (NASDAQ: LYFT) were the subjects of a recent article in Bloomberg stating: "(Bloomberg) – Ride-hailing companies are beginning to taking far-reaching steps in response to plummeting demand and economic hardships facing their drivers.

In a bid to prop up earnings for existing drivers as the coronavirus freezes normal activity, Lyft Inc. said Wednesday it will stop adding new drivers to its platform in many cities. Uber Technologies Inc. said it slashed nearly all marketing campaigns designed to recruit drivers and is evaluating whether to follow Lyft in limiting the ability for workers to sign up.

Spending on Lyft and Uber has been falling across the U.S. in the last couple weeks, mirroring slowdowns in other countries during the virus outbreak. Each company saw a decline of about 20% last week compared with the week before, according to Edison Trends, a research firm.

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