未來你可能會像Uber司機一樣接單工作
As Uber has grown to become one of the world’s most valuable start-ups, its ambitions often seem limitless.
隨着Uber成長爲全世界最具價值的初創企業之一，其野心看起來也是永無止境的。But of all the ways that Uber could change the world, the most far-reaching may be found closest at hand: your office. Uber, and more broadly the app-driven labor market it represents, is at the center of what could be a sea change in work, and in how people think about their jobs. You may not be contemplating becoming an Uber driver any time soon, but the Uberization of work may soon be coming to your chosen profession.
但是在所有Uber能改變世界的方式之中，影響最深遠的卻可能近在咫尺：你的辦公室。Uber，以及更廣義來說，它所代表的由應用軟件驅動的勞動力市場，處於一個工作上的，及人們如何看待自己的工作的鉅變的核心。你也許沒有在近期內成爲Uber司機的想法，但是你所選擇的職業可能很快就會被Uber化。Just as Uber is doing for taxis, new technologies have the potential to chop up a broad array of traditional jobs into discrete tasks that can be assigned to people just when they’re needed, with wages set by a dynamic measurement of supply and demand, and every worker’s performance constantly tracked, reviewed and subject to the sometimes harsh light of customer satisfaction. Uber and its ride-sharing competitors, including Lyft and Sidecar, are the boldest examples of this breed, which many in the tech industry see as a new kind of start-up — one whose primary mission is to efficiently allocate human beings and their possessions, rather than information.
就像Uber對出租車行業的影響一樣，新興科技擁有這樣一個潛能——它可以把大量的傳統工作分割成互相獨立的任務，並在需要時將之分配出去。相應的報酬將由供需關係動態決定，而且每一位工作者的表現將被不斷地追蹤、評估並時不時受到嚴厲的顧客滿意度監督。Uber以及它車輛共乘類的競爭對手，包括Lyft和Sidecar，是這類全新工作方式的最佳代表。科技界的很多人將它們視作一種新型的初創公司——他們的首要使命是高效地分配人以及他們的財產，而非信息。
Various companies are now trying to emulate Uber’s business model in other fields, from daily chores like grocery shopping and laundry to more upmarket products like legal services and even medicine.
從日常瑣事如買雜貨和洗衣服，到更高端的產品如法律服務甚至醫藥行業，許多不同行業的公司都在模仿Uber的商業模式。“I do think we are defining a new category of work that isn’t full-time employment but is not running your own business either,” said Arun Sundararajan, a professor at New York University’s business school who has studied the rise of the so-called on-demand economy, and who is mainly optimistic about its prospects.
紐約大學商學院教授阿倫·桑達拉拉吉(Arun Sundararajan)說道，“我的確認爲我們正在定義一種新型工作方式——它既非全職工作也不算是個體戶”。他對按需經濟的興起展開研究，並對這種工作方式的前景比較樂觀。
Uberization will have its benefits: Technology could make your work life more flexible, allowing you to fit your job, or perhaps multiple jobs, around your schedule, rather than vice versa. Even during a time of renewed job growth, Americans’ wages are stubbornly stagnant, and the on-demand economy may provide novel streams of income.
Uber化有它的好處：技術會讓我們的工作生活更有彈性，讓我們根據自己的時間來安排一個或多個工作，而不是根據工作來安排自己的時間。即便現在就業已經在重新增長，美國人的工資卻依舊停滯不前，所以按需的經濟模式也許能提供全新的收入來源。“We may end up with a future in which a fraction of the work force would do a portfolio of things to generate an income — you could be an Uber driver, an Instacart shopper, an Airbnb host and a Taskrabbit,” Dr. Sundararajan said.
桑達拉拉吉博士說，“我們的未來可能會是這樣的——一小部分勞動力會以做很多不同的工作爲生：你可以做Uber司機，替Instacart買東西，在Airbnb上租房子以及在Taskrabbit上攬外包”。But the rise of such work could also make your income less predictable and your long-term employment less secure. And it may relegate the idea of establishing a lifelong career to a distant memory.
但是這種工作方式的崛起可能會讓收入更不可預測，也可能會讓長期僱用更沒有保障。而且它也許讓人們忘記建立一個畢生的事業是一個什麼樣的概念。“I think it’s nonsense, utter nonsense,” said Robert B. Reich, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley who was the secretary of labor during the Clinton administration. “This on-demand economy means a work life that is unpredictable, doesn’t pay very well and is terribly insecure.” After interviewing many workers in the on-demand world, Dr. Reich said he has concluded that “most would much rather have good, well-paying, regular jobs.”
“我認爲這就是胡扯，純粹是胡扯，”曾任克林頓政府勞工部部長，加州大學伯克利分校的經濟學家羅伯特·B·賴希(Robert B. Reich)說。“這種按需型經濟意味着你的工作生活會變得不可預測、低薪而且十分沒有保障。”在採訪過很多從事按需型工作的人之後，賴希博士得出的結論是“多數人都寧願從事好的、高薪的普通工作”。It is true that many of these start-ups are creating new opportunities for employment, which is a novel trend in tech, especially during an era in which we’re all fretting about robots stealing our jobs. Proponents of on-demand work point out that many of the tech giants that sprang up over the last decade minted billions in profits without hiring very many people; Facebook, for instance, serves more than a billion users, but employs only a few thousand highly skilled workers, most of them in California.
的確，很多這類初創公司都在創造新的就業機會。這是一個技術界的新趨勢，尤其考慮到現在我們都在擔心機器人會搶走我們的工作。按需工作的支持者們指出，很多在過去十年間崛起的科技巨頭在沒有僱傭很多人的情況下，創造了數十億的利潤；比如說，Facebook爲十億以上用戶提供服務，但僅僅僱傭幾千名技術水平很高的員工，而且多數在加利福尼亞。To make the case that it is creating lots of new jobs, Uber recently provided some of its data on ridership to Alan B. Krueger, an economist at Princeton and a former chairman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers. Unsurprisingly, Dr. Krueger’s report — which he said he was allowed to produce without interference from Uber — paints Uber as a force for good in the labor market.
爲了展示出自己創造了很多新的就業機會，Uber最近向普林斯頓大學經濟學家阿蘭·B·克魯格(Alan B. Krueger)提供了一些乘車數據。他同時也是奧巴馬總統經濟顧問委員會的前主席。不出所料，克魯格博士的報告將Uber描繪成一股對勞動力市場有利的力量。克魯格博士說他的報告的產生過程沒有受到Uber的干擾。Dr. Krueger found that at the end of 2014, Uber had 160,000 drivers regularly working for it in the United States. About 40,000 new drivers signed up in December alone, and the number of sign-ups was doubling every six months.
克魯格博士發現在2014年末，Uber有16萬名司機定期在美國工作。僅十二月份就有大約4萬名司機加入Uber。而且每六個月新加入的司機數目就會翻番。The report found that on average, Uber’s drivers worked fewer hours and earned more per hour than traditional taxi drivers, even when you account for their expenses. That conclusion, though, has raised fierce debate among economists, because it’s not clear how much Uber drivers really are paying in expenses. Drivers on the service use their own cars and pay for their gas; taxi drivers generally do not.
這份報告發現，即使減去他們的開銷，Uber司機平均比出租車司機每小時賺得更多且工作時間更短。但是這個結論引起了經濟學家之間激烈的爭論，因爲Uber司機的開銷其實並不明確。此項服務的司機開自己的車，自付油費，而出租車司機則不然。The key perk of an Uber job is flexibility. In most of Uber’s largest markets, a majority of its drivers work from one to 15 hours a week, while many traditional taxi drivers work full time. A survey of Uber drivers contained in the report found that most were already employed full or part time when they found Uber, and that earning an additional income on the side was a primary benefit of driving for Uber.
Uber的關鍵好處是靈活度。在大多數Uber最大的市場裏，大部分司機的每週工作時長從一小時到十五小時不等，而許多傳統出租車司機都是全天工作。報告中一份針對Uber司機的調查發現多數司機在加入Uber之前已經有全職或兼職的工作了，所以能賺點外快是開Uber的主要好處。Dr. Krueger pointed out that Uber’s growth was disconnected to improvements in the broader labor market. “As the economy got stronger, Uber’s rate of growth increased,” he said. “So far, it’s not showing signs of limitations in terms of attracting enough drivers.”
克魯格博士指出Uber的增長與勞動力市場的整體改善無關。他說，“隨着經濟增長，Uber增長率也有所增加。目前還沒有出現吸引新司機的瓶頸”。One criticism of Uber-like jobs is that because drivers aren’t technically employees but are instead independent contractors of Uber, they don’t enjoy the security and benefits of traditional jobs. The complication, here, though, is that most taxi drivers are also independent contractors, so the arrangement isn’t particularly novel in the ride business. And as on-demand jobs become more prevalent, guildlike professional groups are forming to provide benefits and support for workers.
一項對Uber式工作的批評是它的司機嚴格意義上說不是僱員而是獨立的承包商，所以他們不享有傳統工作的保障和待遇。可複雜的是，多數出租車司機也是獨立的承包商，所以Uber的安排在租車行業並不算新奇。而且隨着按需工作越來越普及，行會形式的組織也正在形成，來爲人們提供相應待遇和支持。The larger worry about on-demand jobs is not about benefits, but about a lack of agency — a future in which computers, rather than humans, determine what you do, when and for how much. The rise of Uber-like jobs is the logical culmination of an economic and tech system that holds efficiency as its paramount virtue.
關於按需工作，更大的擔憂並非是待遇，而是缺乏管理機構——擔憂在未來，電腦而非人決定你做什麼、什麼時候做、給你多少錢。Uber式工作的崛起是將效率奉若神明的經濟和科技體系發展的合理結果。“These services are successful because they are tapping into people’s available time more efficiently,” Dr. Sundararajan said. “You could say that people are monetizing their own downtime.”
“這些服務的成功之處在於他們可以更有效地利用人們的可用時間，”桑達拉拉吉博士說。“可以說人們在利用下班時間賺錢。”Think about that for a second; isn’t “monetizing downtime” a hellish vision of the future of work?
稍等一下，難道“利用下班時間賺錢”不是極其糟糕的未來的工作方式嗎？“I’m glad if people like working for Uber, but those subjective feelings have got to be understood in the context of there being very few alternatives,” Dr. Reich said. “Can you imagine if this turns into a Mechanical Turk economy, where everyone is doing piecework at all odd hours, and no one knows when the next job will come, and how much it will pay? What kind of private lives can we possibly have, what kind of relationships, what kind of families?”
“如果人們喜歡爲Uber工作的話，我當然很高興了。但我們在理解這些主觀感受時必須考慮到他們並沒有什麼其他的選擇，”賴希博士說。“你能想象如果這變成一個土耳其人象棋傀儡(Mechanical Turk)型的經濟嗎——每個人都在零散時間做零碎工作，不知道什麼時候會接到下一份工作，也不知道它的報酬會是多少？這樣的話，我們還能有什麼樣的個人生活，什麼樣的人際關係，什麼樣的家庭？”The on-demand economy may be better than the alternative of software automating all our work. But that isn’t necessarily much of a cause for celebration.
按需經濟可能比把工作徹底軟件自動化要強吧，但也不一定值得慶祝。
