Acorns and ZipRecruiter partner to launch job portal within the app

Acorns on Monday announced that it would partner with ZipRecruiter to launch a job portal within its finance app. The job portal will allow clients to browse and apply for jobs using the app, as well as, allow Acorns to expand into the hiring market.

Acorns’ new job portal is the first of its kind for companies that offer financial services. The portal and its launch had been part of the company’s plans, but it came sooner than expected due to the higher unemployment amid the pandemic.

The hiring portal will feature full, part-time, and remote job openings. Users will also be able to set up job alerts and see career development content.

“The more you earn, the more you can save and invest for the future – we wanted to connect those dots for people,” said Acorns CEO, Noah Kerner. “By aligning that within Acorns, we can help people earn extra money, so they can invest more money.”

According to Kerner, lack of income is the biggest barrier to Americans investing. He said in an Acorns survey released on Monday, 34 percent of respondents said they are not able to invest or reach their savings goals because they do not make enough money. In the survey, men had a higher percentage of 39% compared to women at 30%.

The current coronavirus-related crisis has left millions of Americans unemployed, sidelining them from the labor market. With companies laying off and furloughing workers, the numbers of unemployment claims continue to increase. Earlier this month, American Airlines and United Airlines both furloughed a total of 36,000 employees. The unemployment rate slowly recovered in June when the economy reopened, and dropped to 7.9%. Yet, the unemployment rate still doubles pre-Covid levels.

“There are periods in time when there were really rocky markets, and people tended to pull money out. “It’s encouraging to see more and more people saving and investing, especially during a difficult time,” said Kerner.

Amid the volatility caused by the coronavirus pandemic, Kerner says, more customers have remained committed to an investing plan.

Acorns is an eight-year-old fintech company which allows customers to invest spare change from debit or credit card purchases, automatically. The way it works is simple; if an Acorns user purchases a donut for $2.75, the app will automatically round it up to the nearest dollar and put what’s left into the user’s investment account. The money will then be put into a professionally managed index fund. The company also offers other catch financial services and investing education services to customers.

According to Acorns, its average customer is about 32 years old with an income of $50,000 to $60,000. The company also added that since its founding, it has grown to more than 8.2 million customer accounts, with $3.2 billion assets under management. Eighteen months ago, the company had only 4.5 million customer accounts.