China’s vulnerable gig workers grapple with lower pay and longer hours as Beijing touts benefits of platform economy
- The slowing economy has resulted in a flood of new gig workers who have been reduced to working longer to get fewer orders than they saw during the pandemic
- In the aftermath of a bruising industry crackdown, Beijing has turned to internet platforms to boost growth, further burdening workers with little job security
The burden of buoying China’s flagging economy is increasingly falling to the country’s 200 million gig workers, who already have little job security in an increasingly saturated market, with sweltering summer temperatures only worsening searing conditions.
Food delivery riders and ride-share drivers are among the many people working under what Beijing refers to as “flexible employment”. These workers, who are effectively freelancers not protected by traditional employment contracts, are facing declining pay and longer hours this summer even as they are held up by Beijing as a model for future economic growth.
In the first summer since China’s central government lifted Covid-19 restrictions and reopened its borders, the lethargic economic recovery has not been what many had hoped. With fewer employment opportunities to go around, more workers have been pushed into the gig economy and watched their earnings shrivel ever since.
“Now I get 30 to 40 orders a day, running 15 hours a day,” the driver told the South China Morning Post in June while awaiting new orders in Beijing’s Sanlitun area. “It took fewer hours to get up to 70 orders per day previously.”
Making matters worse for those zipping around the city streets on motorbikes is the global heatwave this year that saw temperatures for half the days in June in the Chinese capital surpass 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit), while the last day of the month reached 39 degrees. That was nearly the 41-degree average high that month in Dubai, the Middle Eastern city with a reputation for brutal summers.
One Ele.me delivery rider, who joined the platform in May after losing a factory job in Shanxi province, said that he was getting 60 orders on days he worked from 9am to 10pm when he started. By June, he was getting 40 orders per day “at most”, he said.