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Comment by TheTaytay | Hacker News Reader

I concur. I needed a ditch dug a couple of weeks ago, and everyone was recommending that I drive to Home Depot and pick some guys up waiting for work. There has _got_ to be a better way. Note that this felt different to me than hiring a handyman or any other skilled trade, which feels like a semi-solved problem. Sometimes I just need some extra hands, and learning the unspoken rules around how to hire guys on a street-corner is not something I'm interested in.

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Your problem isn’t hiring people, it’s hiring illegals willing to work for cheap in the Home Depot parking lot.

Finding legal casual labor is tough because good workers with strong backs move up quickly, and you’re left with illegals and drunks.

Not sure what the current going rate is but doesn't a service like People Ready solve this? A while back I hired a couple guys through them to help with a move and they were a couple bucks an hour over minimum wage.

Don't forget transportation

I moved last year and ended up using some street corner guys. Cost me the same as pros, more or less, but just easier for me personally. They're largely undocumented workers and a strictly cash business, though, so app-izing them would be difficult if not impossible.

However- I did also learn that it's easy to hire professional movers to just help you load a u-haul for a couple if that's what you want. Working with those companies and app-izing that labor is something that should be possible.

It is: https://www.uship.com/

(There's even a reality show around it, that's how I know about it)

> and learning the unspoken rules around how to hire guys on a street-corner is not something I'm interested in.

Classic SV/SF “I want this service, without having to interact with poor people” next step up from bus as a startup laundry delivery as a startup etc

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