Why would increased operating costs mean they can't offer flexible hours to drivers?
Setting and maintaining a new schedule would ADD to operating costs (gotta pay someone to administer the calendar), so there has to be some other reason.
Is there some magical cost per-driver that nobody (even the Uber CEO) seems to be able to articulate? Stuff like withholding for W2s seems to scale really well. The only cost I can think of that doesn't scale basically linearly with hours worked is healthcare (only kicks in at 30hrs/week).
If anything, Uber and Lyft should be threatening to limit drivers to 30hrs/week. That's what I'd bet on actually happening.
> Why would increased operating costs mean they can't offer flexible hours to drivers?
Because in no universe does it ever make sense to pay healthcare and numerous other benefits to an "employee" who is working 2 hours a week. Thats why.
> Is there some magical cost per-driver
Yes. It is called fixed costs. Full time employees have a certain level of fixed costs. The obvious example being healthcare.
Because they're already losing money, and they would lose money even faster if they have the same inefficiencies while also paying for new costs. They would eliminate flexibility to capitalize on reducing costs by having fewer employees with fixed costs that reliably cover the clock efficiently based on demand.
In other words, the same reason why restaurants don't allow a waiter to show up to work for 2 hours at 4AM.
Setting and maintaining a new schedule would ADD to operating costs (gotta pay someone to administer the calendar), so there has to be some other reason.
Is there some magical cost per-driver that nobody (even the Uber CEO) seems to be able to articulate? Stuff like withholding for W2s seems to scale really well. The only cost I can think of that doesn't scale basically linearly with hours worked is healthcare (only kicks in at 30hrs/week).
If anything, Uber and Lyft should be threatening to limit drivers to 30hrs/week. That's what I'd bet on actually happening.