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by ebiester 4292 days ago
It seems more true that workers have signalled that they are desperate. This is doubly true with workers with only a high school education and those who are minorities.

We have some major structural employment issues going on.

1 comments

You realize that "structural employment issues" refers to the either a) an inability for buyers and sellers to find each other or b) a bunch of sellers have no willing buyers at any price?

Homejoy is resolving those structural issues by making it easier for buyers and sellers to find each other.

The ever-growing group b) isn't helped by Homejoy etc. No matter how low their price or how low the search costs get, they still have no purchasers. Their labor has either zero or negative marginal product.

That's a structural issue: just as aging pulls people out of the labor pool, the increased substitutability of capital for labor is pulling out working-age adults from the pool of workers who are realistically able to work. Homejoy etc. does help the people at the margins of this pool who wouldn't otherwise be affordable to employ (e.g. due to overhead costs), but it doesn't obviate the basic structural trends happening.

Why do you believe group (b) is growing? Is the number of people who are disabled and unable to clean a home or do any other useful work increasing?