Monthly income of food delivery workers fell 11% over 3 years: NCAER

NCAER study shows real income of long-shift workers fell 11.1% in 3 years due to inflation and increased share of fuel costs

The average real monthly income of food delivery platform workers declined between 2019 and 2022, as inflation and increased share of fuel costs affected their ability to meet household expenditure, a latest report released by the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) on Monday showed.

According to the report, while the real income of long-shift employees (working for 11-hour shifts) declined 11.1 per cent to Rs 11,963 in 2022 from Rs 13,470 in 2019, that of employees working for five-hour shifts fell 10.4 per cent to Rs 7,157 from Rs 7,999 in the same period.

As the working hours remained the same for the short-shift workers, the long-shift employees saw a 19 per cent increase in their working hours to 10.9 hours a day, as compared to 9.3 hours in their previous jobs.

“Platform workers reported that real incomes had gone down over time. That is primarily due to inflation. For long-shift workers, it has become harder to achieve targets (which translates into higher income) due to increased traffic and rising competition,” according to the report titled “Socio-economic Impact Assessment of Food Delivery Platform Workers”.

“The real income of all workers has gone down as the ability to meet monthly expenditure out of monthly incomes of long-shift workers has also gone down.”

This is the first of NCAER's three-part research programme and focuses on the employment patterns, incomes, and work environments of food delivery platform workers. It assessed 924 food delivery platform workers from one company across 28 cities based on their activity status (currently working on the platform and those who have left the platform), tenure levels (how long they have been on the platform), and engagement types (working on long shifts or shorter, or weekends).

Bornali Bhandari, professor at NCAER, said the platform work moved the needle towards the formalisation of employment by offering benefits like accident insurance and task-based written contracts to all workers.

"Though the earnings are not very high from the platform work and in some cases, people do suffer losses due to rise in costs. Yet, the food platform [work], owing to its flexible, independent nature, does provide an income to vulnerable people and often acts as a measure of last resort," she added.

According to the report, food delivery platforms have helped create jobs for young workers in tier 2 and tier 3 cities, with a majority of the platform workers currently employed in their hometowns, with 84 per cent respondents below the age of 35. The active long-shift worker on average works 27.7 per cent longer than the average urban youth male worker, but generates only 5 per cent more net income.