The market for finding hourly workers isn’t just broken. It’s out of touch. Once built for a world of punch clocks and paper résumés, today’s labor market is riddled with friction that serves neither worker nor employer in an economy that demands flexibility, precision and purpose.
What’s emerging to replace it isn’t another staffing agency or gig app. It’s something entirely different: a labor operating system.
That’s how Simon Khalaf described WorkWhile’ s mission in a recent conversation with Karen Webster. The former CEO of Marqeta, now serving as COO of WorkWhile, is helping to architect a fundamental shift in how employers and employees think about hourly work.
Their numbers tell a compelling story. WorkWhile employs more than 173,000 people every day across the United States, making it the 26th largest employer in the country, according to Khalaf. They employ zero recruiters and have zero team members dedicated to talent acquisition. It’s all AI. Their competitive edge is data that continuously learns and evolves.
Khalaf said that WorkWhile isn’t just about matching available workers with shift openings. WorkWhile matches workers to jobs based on who they are, what they can do and exactly what’s needed at that precise moment. As Khalaf puts it: “You’re not just a cook. You’re a cook who knows how to prepare lamb with Mediterranean spices, using a Viking oven, with two sous chefs.”
For WorkWhile and the employers who use their platform, success isn’t measured by filling a shift. It’s about redesigning the workforce at the task level. Down to the skill, down to the station, in real time.
Underwriting Labor, Not Guessing at It
Khalaf remarked that most of the hourly economy runs on guesswork. Show rates average 60 percent. Turnover is high. No-shows are routine. He said that WorkWhile flips that model. Its show rate prediction model has less than 4 percent error. In an industry where 40 percent is the norm, that’s a seismic shift.
Karen Webster called it “underwriting labor.” Khalaf didn’t hesitate. “We’re better at predicting humans than most companies are at predicting whether you’ll pay your credit card,” he said.
This isn’t just about finding someone fast. It’s about finding the right someone: the worker who knows how to operate specific equipment, who’s properly trained, who shows up consistently, whos’ done the job before. Most importantly, it’s about finding the person that the same employer with the same need would gladly hire again and again.
Building an Ecosystem, Not Just an Engine
Khalaf told Webster that WorkWhile is creating an entirely new ecosystem for hourly workers and the employers who need their services — a comprehensive stack of services that travels with the workers, wherever they go.
The model resembles a digital version of what companies like GE or IBM used to offer their employees, except it’s portable, modular and built around the worker rather than the corporation.
“Your phone number is portable,” Khalaf observes. “Why can’t all of the benefits wrapped around the worker be portable too?”
Today’s reality for WorkWhile’s workers includes instant pay with no fees, banking services powered through a partnership with Marqeta and free telehealth through a collaboration with Qri Health. Workers develop new capabilities through just-in-time training delivered by AI.
Khalaf said that the impact is measurable. WorkWhile has saved 48.5 percent of workers who use their telehealth services from trips to urgent care or the emergency room. That represents massive savings for individual workers and the broader healthcare system.
More importantly, workers gain something the traditional hourly labor market rarely provides: stability and predictability.
Labor as Capital
WorkWhile’s long-term vision extends well beyond filling shifts. They’re building workforce infrastructure where labor becomes as knowable and valuable as capital itself.
The platform can predict with 93% accuracy which job a worker will have two weeks from now. This level of predictability makes it possible to offer banking, borrowing and benefits based not on credit scores but on the demonstrable value of future labor.
Khalaf offered the example of the financial burden facing America’s hourly workers. An average of 16% of every dollar earned by 83 million hourly workers goes toward interest payments. WorkWhile believes they can eliminate this burden by creating an “interest-free loan economy” powered by predictable labor and the data they have about their hourly worker’s future earnings.
That visibility into future earnings or cash flow helps them underwrite loans based on future wages, something very challenging for other lenders to match without access, Khalaf explained. Since they know where someone is working, when they’ll work next, and what they’ll earn — the collateral is labor itself.
Over time, Khalaf envisions WorkWhile evolving into “something closer to a neo credit union,” a financial services provider built around the realities of modern work rather than traditional employment models.
Designing for Workers, Not Recruiters
The traditional labor model treats people as interchangeable parts — plug one in when another drops out. The gig economy optimized for speed but sacrificed trust and stability. WorkWhile represents a third path, designing matches around the individual worker.
The result is a labor system that feels less like staffing and more like software, Khalaf explained. It’s a platform that treats labor not as a transaction but as an ecosystem and a source of value.
Khalaf said that this philosophical shift matters because labor isn’t just one input among many in our economy, it’s the most important one. Labor creates value. Labor moves markets. And now, with the right platform, it’s finally getting the operating system it deserves.
“We’re disrupting HR first,” Khalaf says, outlining WorkWhile’s strategic progression. “Then the traditional staffing agencies. And after that, FinTech.”
It’s an ambitious roadmap, but one grounded in a simple recognition. The future of work requires infrastructure that serves workers as well as it serves businesses. Khalaf said that WorkWhile isn’t just about filling jobs. They’re reimagining what it means to work in America, one hourly worker at a time.
