Orange County Employment Lawyers Blog
We all know that finding a new job can be difficult. This is especially true if you are currently unemployed. As the saying goes, it’s easier to find a job when you already have a job. However, we talk about finding a new job, many people do not even know where to begin.
According to a recent news feature from CBS Los Angeles, Mayor Eric Garcetti has just released a new smart phone app designed to help people in the city find jobs. The way the app works is that it searches jobs from various listings and aggregates the results. This includes an average of around 50,000 jobs within city limits and another 100,000 jobs in Los Angeles County.
The fact that it is on a smart phone is most helpful, because research and analytics now show that the majority of people are using their mobile phones to search on the internet as opposed to a traditional desktop or even laptop computer. Another reason this is helpful is because the faster one applies for a job in many cases, the better chance he or she has in getting the job, and, since people are used to looking at their smart phones all day long, this is a convenient way to get your name in quickly. This particular app is completely fee and is also not supported by advertising, so there are not supposed to be annoying popups making things more difficult.
Aside from listing jobs, people are using their smart phones to do their jobs more often these days. There have been many new jobs added to the Los Angeles economy, city and county wide, and many of these new jobs are part of a newer type of employment that has been termed on-demand employment.
An on-demand employment arrangement typically involves a person signing up with a company to perform direct services to the company’s customers. Lyft and Uber are major players in this game. With one of these companies, the customer has an app that lets them request a driver to come to their location and take them to their destination, much like a taxi. However, these cars are supposed to be newer and cleaner than a taxi, and the entire monetary transaction, including gratuity, is handled via the app, and the fare is debited from the user’s bank account. The driver is then paid at a later date.
There are many other types of on-demand jobs, from maid to driver, to even more tech-savvy jobs like video editing and photo retouching. However, the one problem with these jobs is that employers routinely try to classify these workers as independent contractors, as opposed to statutory employees. They do this so they do not have to pay workers’ compensation, benefits, or overtime, and to avoid liability in the event a driver is involved in an accident.
These companies are trying to say they are merely brokering an exchange between two people and are not really involved in the transaction and certainly don’t supervise it. However, when several employees have claimed employment misclassification in Los Angeles, courts may now be willing to side with the employees in some cases, which is a change from the past.
Contact the employment attorneys at Nassiri Law Group, practicing in Orange County, Riverside and Los Angeles. Call 949.375.4734.
Additional Resources:
Mayor Garcetti Unveils New Jobs App, March 14, 2016, CBS Los Angeles, By News Desk
More Blog Entries:
California Employment Lawsuit Over Lyft Drivers Settled, Feb. 5, 2016, Orange County Wage and Hour Lawyer Blog