Some App-Based Startup Firms Are Hiring Real Employees

Whether they are worried about getting blind-sided by a definitional change of “contract worker” (as signaled by a recent California decision that went against Uber) or because they have come to believe that “real employees are better employees,” some app-based startups are going back to the old model, writes New York Times reporter Farhad Manjoo. Among them is company called “Enjoy,” which is headed by the man who founded Apple’s retail division and formerly ran J.C. Penney. “The on-demand companies that have embraced the old-fashioned employee model,” Manjoo writes, “all say they aim to deliver an experience that wows customers. The best way to do that, they say, is to train and systematically deploy their workers — a practice that can be accomplished only with actual employees.”