October 28, 2015
By Steve Wishnia and Neal Tepel
Lobbying the New York State government to let it expand to upstate cities like Buffalo, Rochester and Albany, Uber NY general manager Josh Mohrer said Oct. 20 that the company projected it could bring some 13,000 driving jobs to upstate. Uber and its taxi-app competitor Lyft are likely to push for legislation that would allow “transportation network companies” to operate statewide, without many of the regulations placed on taxis and other for-hire vehicles.
But the jobs created would be “insecure, low-paying, part-time work at the expense of a full-time profession,” said Bhairavi Desai of the New York Taxi Workers’ Alliance. An internal estimate Uber released to accompany the lobbying campaign said that the 13,000 freelance jobs it would create upstate would pay drivers a total of about $80 million—or slightly more than $6,000 a year each, before gas and car-maintenance expenses. Read more
