Is TaskRabbit a new recession indicator? Its CEO says applications to be a 'Tasker' have spiked
The oft-debated recession indicator. Lipstick sales, the "men's underwear index," and … an increase in TaskRabbit applications?
There's been an uptick in recent years in the number of people looking to shore up their income streams with gig work.
That's been the case for TaskRabbit, which matches up "Taskers" with clients that need things built, installed, repaired, or otherwise completed by a gig worker. Its CEO, Ania Smith, told the podcast Decoder that applications to be a "Tasker" have spiked in the last year.
"As the economy has changed over the last few years — and especially over the last couple of years as we've seen a bit more struggle — we've had thousands and thousands of taskers applying every year. It's 15-20% more than a year before," said Smith.
In the last three years, Taskrabbit has seen nearly more supply of gig workers than the platform can handle, she added.
"So now in many cities we have wait lists and so forth, because we don't want to onboard a tasker and then not be able to provide them with jobs," Smith said. "It's sort of a false premise. I want to make sure that if you are on our platform, there's work for you to do."
Smith was asked point blank if she felt the rise in Tasker applications was a recession indicator. She didn't rule the possibility out, but she said the surge in applicants doesn't spell recession in and of itself.
"I'm not an economist, and I read all of this stuff, just like you do. And if you do read that stuff, you know, we should have had a recession last year, and one the year before as well," Smith said. "And those predictions turned out to be wrong. And so I think the word is uncertainty."
With so many factors up in the air, Smith says the only thing you can be sure of in today's economy is unpredictability.
"It's very hard to predict what's gonna happen with tariffs, what's gonna happen with bond yields, what's gonna happen with interest rates, what's gonna happen with the housing market," she said. "And so, all I can say is we see an increase in tasker applications. I'm not sure that that's an indication that a recession is coming."
"As a platform, the best way we can help our Tasker community is to make sure that our platform is delivering the opportunities that they are looking for," the spokesperson told Business Insider.
"We know Taskers often need both supplemental income and flexible scheduling options, which is why we invest significant time and resources to attract a variety of clients to the platform," the spokesperson added. "We want to make sure that Taskers have ample opportunities for work, particularly during challenging economic times."
TaskRabbit isn't the only gig-work app to feature a wait list in times of high worker supply.
Business Insider's Alex Bitter wrote in April that those looking to turn to gig work as a back-up if they were to lose their job could find the move harder than they thought.
"In many cities, getting approved to deliver groceries or drive for a ride-hailing service might take weeks or months," Bitter wrote.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
26 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Augmented reality can show local residents future building plans in real time — and Tampa Bay wants in
InCitu is an augmented reality platform that lets users see infrastructure projects on a smartphone. Tampa Bay's planning council is using AR to give communities a look at new infrastructure changes. This article is part of "Build IT: Connectivity," a series about tech powering better business. The climate crisis has intensified the frequency and severity of flooding for many communities, prompting cities to turn to climate-resilient infrastructure. At the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council, a growing challenge is communicating these solutions to residents and officials. Sarah Vitale, the director of civic technology at the TBRPC, which provides local governments with technology to aid in climate resilience planning, including flooding and hurricane preparedness, often uses 2D images and renders to showcase new infrastructure, such as stormwater drainage systems. However, these tools failed to show the scale of the projects. Last year, Vitale partnered with InCitu, a New York-based augmented reality startup, to give communities a clearer picture of future infrastructure developments. "What better way to do that than to really let them experience it in real time in the physical space?" Vitale said. InCitu's AR platform is designed to help government agencies, real estate developers, urban planners, and architects show colleagues or community members what proposed buildings and infrastructure projects will look like once completed. "I wanted to communicate this type of information so that a non-professional can experience it as they walk down the street," Dana Chermesh-Reshef, the CEO of InCitu, told Business Insider. InCitu's technology has also launched in seven other US cities, including Washington, DC, and New York. Chermesh-Reshef founded InCitu in 2020 after realizing the usual software tools used to present infrastructure projects, such as PowerPoint presentations and 2D renders, struggled to show a project's full scale and scope from various angles. It can also be difficult to imagine a project in an environment like a conference room, entirely removed from where it will exist. InCitu's smartphone-based platform tackles this by turning 3D models into AR visuals, helping people see a project as it would appear in real life. Instead of using an AR headset, users can scan a QR code with a smartphone camera at a construction site — often a building, bridge, roadway, or sidewalk — to view the life-sized AR visualization. "You don't have to download any app. You walk down the street, there's a QR code on the ground or on the construction site," Chermesh-Reshef said. Users can use their smartphones to walk around a project and view it from any angle they can access. InCitu also supports off-site viewing, so users can view a 3D model of the project without visiting its geographical location. InCitu uses geospatial data, which draws on satellite and street view imagery, to decide where an imported 3D model should appear for on-site viewing. Geospatial data is also used to keep the 3D model in the right location as a user moves around it in the real world. Vitale encountered InCitu on LinkedIn in January 2024 while preparing for TBRPC's annual regional resiliency summit. This two-day event brings together roughly 300 elected officials, subject experts, and residents to find solutions for the region's climate risks. Vitale wanted a way to give attendees a scaled, realistic visualization of building changes and infrastructure that can manage flood risks. Vitale used InCitu to show three AR models of new projects during on-site visits near the event: a house elevated on stilts to demonstrate flood-resistant construction, a bioswale showing natural stormwater management, and a living shoreline that uses natural materials to combat eroding beaches. Vitale said that her organization's use of InCitu is still in the "marketing phase" and that its role at the resiliency summit was in part to let attendees and prospective clients know her team can provide AR technology for infrastructure planning. She said the reception so far has been positive. "It's not a big, dense document. It's something interesting that people can engage with and start experiencing a planning process in a new way," Vitale said. She added that AR displays can reduce the "engagement fatigue" that can accompany lengthy meetings and complex 2D visualizations. The technology's effectiveness convinced TBRPC to use InCitu for AR demonstrations at its 2025 summit in May. The organization also plans to use InCitu to educate students at local high schools about bioswales and other infrastructure solutions to flooding. "We can take them to a site that's full of concrete and show them other ways to naturalize the surface, to handle some of the water, when it's pouring rain," Vitale said. She hopes the technology will help students understand alternatives to less permeable "gray" infrastructure, like concrete. Vital said she expects the use of AR tools like InCitu to become standard practice in urban planning as newer, younger graduates with better knowledge of 3D modeling, AR, and other new technologies enter the field. So far, InCitu has made over 5,000 future developments available in AR, and over 250,000 residents have viewed future projects near their communities using the company's AR platform. "I'd like to see planning move in that direction, because of how powerful a communication tool that visualization is," she said. Read the original article on Business Insider
CNBC
an hour ago
- CNBC
Costco is exploring options to make membership more valuable, CEO says
Costco shoppers may soon be getting more bang for their buck. Three months after the retailer extended hours at its North American gas stations, CEO Ron Vachris has said the wholesale club is reviewing the possibility of keeping its stores open longer as well. Vachris said on the company's May 29 earnings call that customer response to the gas station changes has been exceedingly positive. "The combination of expanded gas station hours, new gas station openings and lower prices at the pump have led us to having two of our all-time highest gallon weeks in the U.S. during the last month," Vachris said. As a result, the chain is looking into giving customers the opportunity to spend more time and money inside its stores. "We continue to look at the operations side of things as well," he said. "The warehouse hours." Business Insider reported this week that beginning at the end of the month, Costco will begin allowing members who pay for its $130 Executive Membership into stores an hour earlier than regular $65 Gold Star members. "Our Executive Members are our most loyal members, and we want to reward them for their commitment to Costco," an internal email cited by Business Insider reads. Indeed, Executive Members make up 73% of Costco's sales despite representing only 37.6 million of the company's 79.6 million memberships, according to Costco data. Costco did not respond when reached for comment by CNBC Make It. The main selling point of the Executive Membership is the 2% cash back reward given on every dollar spent at Costco. If you're a Gold Star member thinking about upgrading, you'd need to spend at least $3,250 per year for the membership to start to be worthwhile. Anything below that, and you'll end up spending more money overall with the higher annual fee. The Executive membership also offers additional savings on Costco services like their bottled water delivery and pet insurance. If you buy your home or auto insurance through Costco, the Executive membership will get you some exclusive benefits such as roadside and lockout assistance. If you're on the cusp of a $3,250 annual spend but also use those services, it might make the membership worthwhile. Costco promises to refund the difference in cost between a Gold Star membership and an Executive membership in your first year if you aren't satisfied.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Alberta premier says province working on proposal for new crude oil pipeline to Port of Prince Rupert
By Amanda Stephenson CALGARY (Reuters) - Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said on Wednesday the province is working to present Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney with a proponent and route for a potential new crude pipeline from Alberta to the Port of Prince Rupert in British Columbia. Smith told reporters at an energy conference in Calgary that her government is in talks with Canada's major pipeline companies in the hope that a private sector proponent will take the lead on Alberta's vision of a new, 1-million-barrel-per-day crude oil conduit to B.C.'s northwest coast. She said Alberta aims to gauge private companies' interest in coming together as a consortium to build the pipeline. "Or if one (company) emerges as being a principal proponent, then we'll be interested in talking to them too," Smith said. Canada currently sends approximately 90 per cent of its oil exports to the U.S., but has been seeking to diversify due to trade tensions and tariff threats from President Donald Trump. Alberta, Canada's main oil-producing province, is keen to see construction of a new export pipeline, to give Canada's oil industry the ability to boost production long-term. No private company has publicly expressed interest in building such a project. Smith said she hopes Carney, who won a minority government in April, will make good on his pledge to speed permitting times for major infrastructure projects. Companies will not commit to building a pipeline, Smith said, without confidence in the federal government's intent to bring about regulatory reform. Alberta is proposing that a new oil pipeline be built in tandem with the Pathways Alliance's carbon capture and storage project, which has been proposed by a consortium of oil sands companies to reduce emissions from Canada's energy sector. The companies have not been successful in negotiating an agreement with both levels of government over funding support for the project. Smith said the Pathways project, which could cost between $10 billion and $20 billion to build, would be more likely to be green-lit by oil companies if they had the assurance of revenue growth that a new crude export pipeline would bring. Canada is the world's fourth-largest oil producer. The country achieved record oil production last year as the opening of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion in May 2024 tripled the country's oil export capacity off the B.C. west coast to 890,000 barrels per day. However, construction of that project was marred by regulatory delays and costs soaring to more than four times the pipeline's original budget. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
