About 7 years ago

08/11/2017 - Midnight Reads – In a Job Market This Good, Who Needs to Work in the Gig Economy?

In a Job Market This Good, Who Needs to Work in the Gig Economy?

– The Wall Street Journal 

Uber, Instacart and other gig-economy companies are straining to attract and keep the short-term laborers who give rides, shop for groceries and deliver meals at the tap of an app. Amid low unemployment and fierce competition, startups have begun offering richer perks, benefits and signing bonuses to lure on-demand workers to sign up for, and stay with, their platforms. Companies have beefed up recruiting, even touting the opportunity to join the staff full time — a sign that maintaining a steady labor pool is growing expensive and difficult.

 

Why the Stakes Are So High in Next Year’s Senate Races

– The National Journal 

The political map and math pose severe challenges for Democrats — and suggest that Republicans could retain a majority in the upper chamber long past Trump’s presidency.

 

Fast Food Sales Are Growing Faster Than US Economy

– The New York Post

The burger is back. For the first time in five quarters, the big three fast food giants — McDonald’s, Burger King and Wendy’s — posted same-store sales increases of greater than 3 percent. Put another way, burger sales are growing faster than the US economy, which rose by a meager 2.6 percent in the second quarter.

 

Trump’s Trade Pullout Roils Rural America

– POLITICO

For much of industrial America, the Trans-Pacific Partnership was a suspect deal, the successor to the North American Free Trade Agreement, which some argue led to a massive offshoring of U.S. jobs to Mexico. Politico examines the other side of the equation and the idea that, for the already struggling agricultural sector, the sprawling 12-nation TPP (covering 40 percent of the world’s economy) could have been a lifeline.