Pet Care Meets the Gig Economy. NewsWire

NewsWire: 4/10/21

• Dog walking services are seeing brisk business as Americans begin returning to work. Apps like Wag and Rover are getting record bookings, in part thanks to all the pets that have been adopted during the pandemic. (Bloomberg)
• NH: In 2020, Americans adopted 47M pets. That’s a +5% YoY increase. Animal shelters across the country were reporting they didn’t have enough dogs to fulfill the demand. 
• With lockdowns and increased telecommuting, many of these new pets have become accustomed to their owner’s constant presence. But with vaccinations ramping up, some Americans are being called back into the office. Who’s going to care for Fido when you aren’t home? There’s an app for that.
• Apps that match pet owners with dog walkers are experiencing significant increases in activity. A Place for Rover, the self-proclaimed largest dog walking app, reported that bookings are at their highest level in a year. (The company will soon go public in a new SPAC deal.) Wag Labs, another dog walking app, reported that March bookings in five major cities in Texas and Florida were up +50% MoM.
• Ever since Boomers first treated pets like family members, Americans have been spending more and more money on their animal companions. In August, we reported that owners were taking their pets to the vet more frequently than ever before. (See “Pet Care Soars.”) And for some young adults, caring for animals has become an alternative to parenthood. (In Taiwan, it’s estimated there are now more pets than children. See “Does Taiwan Have More Pets Than Kids?”)
• Bottom line: The pet care boom isn’t ebbing anytime soon.
  

Did You Know?

• Is a Teacher Shortage Imminent? A recent survey found that 19% of undergraduate-level and 11% graduate-level teaching programs have seen significant drops in enrollment this year. Meanwhile, applications for Teach for America are down YoY. Applications may tick back up after in-person learning has resumed, but the challenges facing the profession aren’t going to go away. When asked in October 2020, one-quarter of teachers said that they were likely to leave the profession by the end of the school year. And even before the pandemic hit, fewer students were getting degrees in education: The number of education degrees conferred by U.S. colleges fell 22% between 2006 and 2019, even though the overall number of college graduates increased.