LinkedIn For The Working Class

How Jobcase is building a $1 billion social networking site for warehouse employees and waitresses

- Vicky Valet

Sasha Contreras despaired when she had to quit her $12-an-hour Xerox customer service job and uproot her life in Yelm, Washington. Her husband was starting work as a chef at a casino in rural Mississippi in February 2016. A year later she discovered he was having an affair after 17 years of marriage. Unemployed and alone, she spent every waking moment searching Google for jobs. Then she stumbled on Jobcase, a social media job-search platform for blue-collar and service-industry workers.

“That site literally changed my life,” says Contreras, 55. A free sign-up granted her access to millions of job listings and a stream of helpful posts written by strangers, many of whom were contending with the isolating experience of searching for work. Through a link posted by a member, in late July 2017 she got a customer service job that paid $10 an hour. Two years later Jobcase led her to another customer service job that paid $13 an hour. Though she’s not looking to make a move, she logs on to Jobcase daily. “If I see something that touches me, I’ll respond because I remember what it was like to be looking,” she says.