Hi again, everyone. It's Angelica, a.k.a Battlepanda. I'm going to be filling in this weekend.
Has anyone here heard about Jobdumping.de? I blogged about it a few days ago at my blog because it is an interesting idea that I don't know exactly what make of, so I just thought I'd mention it here to see what people think. It's a kind of reverse eBay for workers that got started in Germany. You post a job listing (typically freelance in nature) and wait for people who want that job to bid down the price of their labor. Sounds pretty Hobbesian, right? And indeed the unions and many politicians are up in arms about it. But when the unemployment rate in Germany is up there at 12.5%, it seems foolish to denounce any venue of job creation.
Make no mistake. I am pro-union. I think the power assymetry between individuals on the one hand and corporations on the other requires collective bargaining for workers to get a fair shake. But JobDumping's target customers are different...these are jobs on the margin offered by individuals instead of firms for the most part. I am tentatively supportive because by lowering the costs of finding and hiring freelance labor the JobDumping concept (which the originator is eager to spread), jobs that were not previously viable would be created. Or I may be wrong and this is just the prelude to a big eRace to the bottom. Either way, a trend to keep an eye out for.
