Food delivery app drivers say they’re increasingly being offered jobs paying as little as $6, with some saying the rates don’t come close to covering the time and costs involved.
Wellington Uber Eats driver Baden Cure said he starting delivering after being made redundant and enjoyed the flexibility of the work.
“I actually really enjoy it because I’m outside, fresh air, exercise, get to meet random people,” he told 1News.
But he said earning a consistent income as a delivery driver was far from guaranteed.
"I’d say it’s a bit of a 50-50… when you get seven or eight people turn up here it’s quiet."
Christchurch driver Adam Green had delivered with DoorDash alongside his full-time job for the past three years, and said rising fuel costs and lower-paying jobs had made it increasingly difficult to earn a worthwhile income.
"For those longer distance [jobs] from Rolleston to Lincoln, nowadays they’re offering us $6 to do that distance," he said.
"Some of these trips could be half an hour of your time."
Workers for food delivery apps say they're sometimes being offered as low as six dollars for half an hour of work. (Source: 1News)
Green said unlike rideshare drivers, food delivery drivers could often spend significant time waiting for restaurants to prepare orders without being paid.
"I think was it last week I had a half an hour wait for the order to be ready," he recalled. "I'd definitely like to see rates increase and especially I'd love to see those wait times come back in."
DoorDash and Uber Eats told 1News average on-trip earnings for drivers were above minimum wage and had increased in the past year, but both companies confirmed those figures did not include time spent waiting between jobs.
Drivers also said the figures did not account for the time spent travelling back to busier areas before receiving another order.
Calls for stronger protections
The concerns first came after the International Labour Organization adopted new global standards for gig economy workers in June, with New Zealand and the US the only countries to oppose them.
The standards aimed to provide gig workers with stronger protections, including rules around minimum remuneration, greater transparency over how pay was calculated, and requirements for platforms to cover certain work-related costs.
Council of Trade Unions secretary Melissa Ansell-Bridges said gig work was contributing to declining employment protections.
"It's worse than falling behind. I think we're sprinting in the opposite direction," she said.
"It's something that actually will impact everyone because you see a general suppressing of wages and rights if you have a lot of people who are effectively having to work without any of them."
She warned that online platform work was expanding beyond food delivery and ridesharing into other industries.
"Examples that we've seen internationally have included work in healthcare or care and support for example, but all sorts of tasks are being done overseas through these digital labour platforms."
She also criticised the government's new gateway test for determining whether someone was an employee or a contractor, saying it effectively locked gig economy workers into contractor status.
Employment Relations Minister Brooke van Velden defended the changes, saying the test gave workers clarity, allowed them freedom to work for multiple businesses, and enabled them to turn down jobs they considered poorly paid without risking termination.
However, workers covered by the contractor model were still not guaranteed the minimum wage.
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