Is a pandemic a good time to start a business? For some, the answer’s yes.

KMUW | By Stan Finger/The Journal

Full article at https://www.kmuw.org/business/2021-01-12/is-a-pandemic-a-good-time-to-start-a-business-for-some-the-answer-is-yes

The phone rang at 4 a.m. on the West Coast, rousing Angela Muhwezi-Hall from a dead sleep. Normally, calls at such times are bad news. 

But this was opportunity calling.

“Now is the time that we have to start working on QuickHire,” her sister, Deborah Gladney, announced from Wichita.

QuickHire was a concept the sisters had been chewing on for years: a way to make it easier for skilled trade and service industry workers to find and apply for jobs. 

As the COVID-19 pandemic prompted the closings of restaurants and other service businesses around the country last March, millions of skilled workers found themselves without work. While there are many job-hunting apps available these days, many skilled trade and service industry jobs aren’t posted on online job boards.

“Our parents came to America over 30 years ago,” Muhwezi-Hall says. “And it was those skilled trade, service industry jobs that supported our family of seven. And both myself and Deborah have had experiences in these types of positions and, while times have changed, the process of getting a lot of these jobs has not changed at all. You may have to physically walk to their brick and mortar location, just to know if they’re even hiring. And they may hand you a paper application to complete.”

Their app launched publicly on Sept. 1 on the iOS App Store and Google Play store, billing itself as an online marketplace for skilled trade jobs. It has attracted 1,500 users to date, garnered national media attention and caught the eye of employers.

“A number of large enterprises have reached out to us wanting to be added to our platform, as well as other media outlets who would like to feature QuickHire,” Gladney says.

Angela Muhwezi-Hall and her sister Deborah Gladney had worked up the concept for QuickHire long before the pandemic darkened 2020, but the enormous spike in unemployment provided the opportunity to bring it to fruition. The app matches workers in the service industry with jobs in the manufacturing, service and retail sectors. (courtesy photo)