- Delivering groceries and takeout as a gig worker was lucrative early in the pandemic.
- But by 2023, competition for jobs has increased and wages have fallen, workers said in dozens of interviews.
- Many gig workers decide that a traditional 9-to-5 job makes more sense.
In 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, Juan started delivering groceries by: instacart You can also order takeout via Uber Eats in Southern California. He had enough money so he didn’t need to do any other work.
Three years later, Juan is still working full-time as a delivery driver. But he is running out of options to stay that way.
Huang said he receives fewer offers through apps these days. Anything that pops up on his screen will disappear in a second or two if he’s not quick, but this is due to the fact that more people in his area are getting delivery jobs. He thinks it’s a change. He’s also tried signing up for other apps like Amazon Flex, Grubhub, and DoorDash, but hasn’t gotten off their waiting lists. “We have no intention of hiring more drivers at this time,” he said.
“2020 and 2021 were great, but things started going downhill in 2022 and 2023,” Huang told Business Insider.
Spokespeople for Amazon, DoorDash, and Grubhub confirmed to Business Insider that the companies have waitlists for delivery candidates in certain markets based on delivery demand.
Over the past few months, I’ve talked to about 30 people who work at Instacart, DoorDash, Walmart’s Spark, and other delivery services that rely on gig workers.
Most of those conversations included common themes. That said, working as a delivery driver has become much more difficult here in the past year. Many employees told me that in the early days of the pandemic, when many people were willing to pay extra to have groceries, takeout, and other items delivered to their homes, they They have started delivery.
But now things are even more difficult. Just finding an order to deliver can be difficult. Some services, such as Instacart, have also reduced base pay for order delivery. Less than 10% of gig workers earn more than $2,000 a month. According to a survey by PayQuicker, a payment company with customers in the gig work sector.
Here are some of the challenges faced by delivery gig workers in 2023. They range from lower wages to increased competition to sudden inactivity. Several employees declined to use their names, citing potential retaliation from the app. Business Insider confirmed their identities and status as gig workers.
Increasing competition, lower wages, and tighter schedules
Many delivery services have long marketed themselves to workers who don’t want a strict 9-to-5 schedule.
Employees of 2015 testimony Instacart is a great example. The article, titled “How Instacart Shoppers Achieve Big Dreams with Flexible Schedules,” features “Greg F.,” an aspiring actor who made a living delivering Instacart orders. ing. “My availability changes weekly for rehearsals and auditions,” Greg is quoted in his testimony. “And I can handle that.”
But working on the app is starting to look like an office job, especially when it comes to working specific hours, employees told Business Insider.
Instacart encourages shoppers to spend time in parking lots Business Insider reported earlier this year that it used color-coded heatmaps to identify neighborhoods near downtown areas. The company says shoppers are more likely to put their orders on hold if they’re near a busy store.
This is in contrast to past years, when many shoppers were able to pick up their orders from home, even if they were miles away from a store. “You’re not really free anymore,” one Utah shopper told Business Insider. “You’re trapped.”
Earlier this year, Instacart told Business Insider that the majority of its contractors spend less than 10 hours each week working on the app. An Instacart spokesperson said, “Overwhelmingly, shoppers say they choose to earn money through the Instacart platform because of the freedom and independence that comes with flexible schedules.” Ta.
One DoorDash driver in California said he doesn’t mind waiting in the parking lot. But he says he misses out on decent orders when he does other things to kill time, like watching his YouTube videos on his smartphone. “It’s like it’s being recorded,” he said. “I can’t answer the phone.”
Contractors for Walmart’s Spark delivery service also have to come to store parking lots once an hour to pick up orders. Once at the spot, by a specified time (depending on the store) he opens the Spark app and picks up the order or batch of orders he wants delivered. Walmart employees will then carry the orders out of the store and into cars.But in reality, stores are very crowded and are facing delays. Spark orders take more than an hour to processas Business Insider reported in October.
One Texas employee said most of Spark’s orders are filled using this hourly shipping schedule. “You can literally pull over at 12:39, but it’s a minute too late,” the driver said. “You don’t get anything.”
A Walmart spokesperson told Insider in October that orders are delivered to drivers within 10 minutes. “We are focused on providing our drivers with an efficient transportation experience and maximizing revenue opportunities, so we take into account the time it takes to process an order when determining the revenue for each trip. ” said the spokesperson.
Then there’s competition from all the other gig workers. Instacart’s gig workforce has swelled to 600,000 people, and Walmart estimates that “hundreds of thousands” of people have made deliveries for Spark. But demand for delivery of many items, especially groceries, has waned since the early days of the pandemic.
This will lead to a reduction in income for many workers. “People can’t live on $30, so they have to find something else,” said a Spark driver from Texas.
Delivery app workers find their pay unreliable
For many gig workers, deliveries like groceries and takeout are no longer able to pay the bills like they used to.
Alexia Hudson spent two years delivering Instacart orders in the Charlotte, North Carolina area.
And in July, two months before the IPO, Instacart lowers minimum payment amount $7 to $4 per order group. Hudson told Business Insider at the time that his pay cut made the job no longer meaningful to him.
She has since started a full-time job and stopped delivering to Instacart.
Instacart’s chief product officer, Daniel Danker, said in a statement at the time of the pay cuts: “We do not expect the average pay of shoppers across our platform to remain unchanged as a result of these updates.” “We know that not all orders are created equal, and we want to ensure that the effort required to fulfill each batch is reflected in our shoppers’ bottom line. I am.”
Some people are following in Hudson’s footsteps and taking up gig work. Demand for delivery services has been declining since the beginning of the pandemic. report It was discovered in a Bank of America Research Institute published in April. At the same time, wages for most full-time jobs rose, and many people who relied on gig work for income began applying for 9-to-5 jobs, the report said.
A traditional job may be more secure than working on a gig app. Some independent contractors have learned the hard way that users can launch from an app. An honest mistake at Walmart’s self-checkout.
Many gig workers told Business Insider in October that once disabled, there is little, if any, opportunity to appeal the decision and come back. Companies including Instacart, Grubhub, DoorDash and Uber said they have appeals processes in place and drivers who have done nothing wrong may be rehired.
New laws in some big cities aim to improve conditions for gig workers. In Seattle, for example, a law will go into effect in January that requires some gig workers to take sick leave and earn a minimum wage of $17.27 an hour. GeekWire reported in August that a city ordinance requiring gig apps to give 14 days’ notice to workers they plan to deactivate will go into effect in 2025.
Last month, a state appellate court judge announced that he had upheld a New York City law that requires DoorDash, Grubhub and Uber to pay food delivery workers at least $17.96 an hour, the city’s minimum wage. New York Post.
Companies that employ delivery workers oppose the law. Target in-house delivery service Shipt even said it would cease operations in Seattle Days before the city’s new law takes effect next month.
For most workers, like Huang in Southern California, exiting the gig economy altogether seems like a better option. “Obviously, the slice of the pie is getting smaller and smaller for me,” he said. “I’m currently looking for a proper job.”
Do you work at Instacart, Walmart Spark or another gig distribution service and have a story idea you’d like to share? Contact this reporter at abitter@insider.com.
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