Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Instacart Converts Contractors To Part Time In Austin, Houston

Silicon Valley-based "on-demand" grocery shopping app developer Instacart, joining a growing number of startups looking to avoid issues with job classification of their workers, said Monday that it will let in-store shoppers for the service become part time employees. Instacart launched its one hour grocery delivery service in Austin in May of last year, letting users select the grocery items they need and have them delivered to them within the hour. Instacart said that its independent contractors who provide delivery can continue to remain as contractors, but that the "hundreds" of in-store shoppers in Houston and Austin will provide additional training and supervision and better efficiency and quality of order picking for the company. Instacart--like many other on-demand startup--is reacting to pressure on fellow on-demand companies Uber and Lyft to comply with contract worker rules.