Inside the Bank Where Almost Every Employee Is a Gig Worker

The word "AI" appears 12 times in this article, but after reading it I still have no idea what it is that AI brings to the table, or how it enables or encourages this approach, or what this approach has to do with AI at all.

> The gig work on Standard Chartered’s marketplace, which was set up in 2020, has helped create more than $8.5 million in value by enabling projects that might have been sidelined in the past due to understaffing or a lengthy hiring process, said Kapilashrami.

> While they don’t make extra money, staff see it as an opportunity to network and build new skills, especially important at a time the labor market is shifting, Kapilashrami said.

Oh, so this was set up before AI was on anyone’s mind and appears to just be another way to squeeze the labor force as companies ruthlessly innovate on their techiques to extract blood from stones.

I think the AI zeitgeist is so popular because it’s given executives a socially convenient excuse to chop 20% of the workforce and push the jobs onto the remaining employees like in 2008

What are these executives going to do when the only people employed by their companies are themselves and it’s time for the bi yearly layoffs to juice the stock price?

> On the talent marketplace, workers can post and apply for gigs in things like basic programming or communications. Currently 60% of the bank’s employees globally are active on the platform, nabbing gigs they can spend up to eight hours on within their regular workweek. While they don’t make extra money, staff see it as an opportunity to network and build new skills, especially important at a time the labor market is shifting, Kapilashrami said.

Is the CEO outsourcing their job to people making $15 an hour?