Instacart To Cut 1,900 Jobs

Instacart plans to terminate about 1,900 employees' jobs, including the only unionized positions in the U.S., representing a fulsome embrace of the gig economy. From a report: The grocery delivery company already classifies most of its workers as independent contractors, whose ranks have ballooned to more than 500,000 during the coronavirus pandemic. But starting in 2015, the company hired a small subset of workers as employees, who under U.S. law are entitled to protections like minimum wage and can be subject to more direction and training by their boss. 'What we found is that our shoppers require training and supervision, which is how you improve the quality of the picking,' Instacart Chief Executive Officer Apoorva Mehta said at the time. 'You can't do that when they are independent contractors.'

Now, Instacart is moving in the other direction, eliminating 1,877 employees' positions, including those of 10 workers in Illinois who last year became the first in the country to vote to unionize at the company. The company said itâ(TM)s doing this as part of a shift toward new models, like providing its technology to retailers to have their own workers prepare customers' orders.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.