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Jitjatjo , a gig market place through which business can book workers with as little as an hour ’s posting , today announce that it raised $ 30 million in a Series B funding round led by Morningside Technology Ventures .
The new cash , which add Jitjatjo ’s amount raised to around $ 65 million , will be put toward bringing the platform to new markets and affirm Jitjatjo ’s go - to - marketplace strategy , carbon monoxide - founder and CEO Tim Chatfield said .
Chatfield founded Jitjatjo in 2015 while work at AWS as an executive manufacturer of the company ’s livestreaming event , peculiarly the keynotes atre : Invent , AWS ’ annual developer conference . He leave AWS in 2018 to focus full - time on Jitjatjo .
“ The party ’s vision is to use technology to transform how businesses chance and wangle temporary stave , ” Chatfield told TechCrunch in an email interview . “ The founder , with backgrounds in applied science and hospitality , visit a gap in the grocery for a more effective , tech - driven plan of attack to staffing . ”
Jitjatjo is , in many ways , a typical gig marketplace — comparable to platforms likeShiftsmartandQwick . organisation in health care , cordial reception , education , retail and facility direction leveraging the platform ’s matching algorithm to find oneself prole for temporary worker openings .
Gig worker complete any necessary paperwork through Jitjatjo ’s smartphone apps , which is also where they indicate their hourly and daily handiness . Jitjatjo devote through a debit entry bill of fare or unmediated depository and incentivizes workers to finish more gigs with an in - app paygrade system , where high ratings weigh the gig - matching algorithmic rule in their favor .
“ [ We ] leverage AI to streamline operations and prioritise interior imagination allocation , reducing labor price by optimise workforce efficiency before considering international outsourcing , ” Chatfield said . “ [ We see ourselves competing ] with traditional staffing agencies and other tech - drive staffing platforms and talent marketplace . ”
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Gig employment was big before the pandemic . But it ’s the billow in the demand for delivery platforms — and the mass exodus of full - sentence doer from the cordial reception and service industries — during the pandemic that drastically expanded the workforce .
A University of Chicagopaperfound that the number of people in the U.S. who account income from platform - based gig work grew from one million workers to most five million in recent years . Flex , a trade association correspond DoorDash , Grubhub , HopSkipDrive , Instacart , Lyft , Shipt and Uber , estimatesthat more than 23 million Americans gain money through a gig platform from July 2022 to July 2023 .
But the growth of gig workplace has n’t come withmoreprotectionsfor gig workers , needfully — who often yield their own payroll tax and are thrust to trade access to benefits such as health insurance , unemployment indemnity , workers ’ comp and retirement savings in exchange for “ pliant ” workings hours .
Gig prole can be punish for canceling jobs over understanding protect by law in traditional employment , like contract sick with COVID . After fees and commissions are deducted from paychecks , some worker make sub - minimum salary ; a 2022surveyfound that an approximate 14 % of gig workers earn less than $ 7.25 per hour while 26 % earn less than $ 10 per hr . And workers have little leveraging against the political program for which they work — even in the face of opaque details about when work will be usable , where they ’ll have to do it and how they ’ll be evaluated .
So is Jitjatjo better than rival platforms in any of these regard ? Somewhat .
Jitjatjo offers a benefits parcel , well , which put up life insurance policy , inadvertent end and dismemberment insurance , counseling serve and prescription discounts along with money - saving offers at retail . For an extra $ 1 per week , workers can get additional indemnity coverage , pet wellness and roadside aid through insurance inauguration Avibra .
And , unlike on some gig political platform , workers on Jitjatjo are separate as W-2 employee , not 1099 — meaning they are n’t responsible for their own payroll taxes come tax twenty-four hours .
Other prospect of Jitjatjo are more troubling , however .
Employers can apply the platform to track an employee ’s locations even before a shift starts — a potential privacy worry . ( In reply to a question about this , Chatfield enjoin that Jitjatjo is “ consecrate to drug user seclusion and datum surety ” and that its policy “ admit strict road map on data retentivity and usance . ” ) . modal hourly pay for some gigs on the platform is as low-toned as $ 12.99 per hour , accordingto ego - report data on Indeed.com — below the minimum pay in a numeral of state . And agree toappreviewson the Apple App Store and Google Play , Jitjatjo ’s platform stomach from bugs that can result in gig being drop or premature clock - outs — and pay being delayed .
But none of that appear to have bear upon Jitjatjo ’s development .
Chatfield enunciate that NYC - based Jitjatjo , which now employs around 120 full - prison term employee , has more than 40,000 gig worker on its marketplace and “ one thousand ” of customers traverse three continents , include Australia .
“ Jitjatjo ’s technology map a scalable , effective enterprise - level solution for managing shimmy - based workforce , reduce overheads and improving operable efficiency , ” Chatfield said . “ Jitjatjo is a scalable solution for businesses with a contingent labor scheme , enabling organizations to safely bring the gig economic system and flexible work inwardly , further meet the demand of the next - coevals workforce … [ The platform hike ] employee atonement and retention through engaging training , real - time feedback and recognition , fostering a overconfident and productive workplace . ”
Hopefully , Jitjatjo ’s gig worker agree .
