America has a hiring problem. This app being built in Miami is designed to solve it
Miami and the rest of the U.S have a worker-shortage problem. With tens of thousands of local jobs going unfilled — and with just as many looking for work — both employers and would-be employees would benefit from a technology that can close the hiring gap.
A new digital platform aiming to put traditional staffing agencies out of business is being built in Miami — with the backing of two of the largest venture-capital groups in tech.
The app, Traba, announced Thursday it had raised $3.6 million from a group led by executives at Founders Fund, the venture group co-founded by Peter Thiel and which now has a major office in Miami; and by Boston-based General Catalyst.
GC recently opened a new Miami outpost led by partner Katherine Boyle.
Traba co-founder Mike Shebat says the Traba app is designed to connect workers with open shifts at warehouses, event venues, and distribution centers. Traba is free for workers to use; it makes money by charging businesses. Traba’s system screens workers for quality and performs a background check before they have full access to the platform. Workers and businesses get to rate each other.
Shebat said one big reason why workers are refusing to return to their prepandemic gigs is a lack of
flexibility.
“They want to be able to work a couple shifts and then not work and take their schedule in their own hands,” Shebat said. “That’s why it’s exciting for us to be building this — we’re coming into a shift in the mentality as whitecollar workers are able to do Zoom, and now bluecollar workers want to have that same approach. They
want to be flexible.”
For now, the Traba team remains small, with four employees. But Traba believes that as it fundamentally transforms on-demand work scheduling, it will create hundreds of technology jobs. A former Uber executive, Shebat and his co-founder, Akshay Buddiga, are relatively new to the Magic City. Shebat said the feeling in Miami reminds
him of Silicon Valley a decade ago.
“The optimism, everyone being so inviting and openminded, there’s a ton of diversity, including in politics and ideas — it’s a very open-minded and welcoming city. Miami is where to be in the world right now.”