Understanding Food Delivery Platform: Delivery Persons Perspective
Understanding Food Delivery Platform: Delivery Persons Perspective
Understanding Food Delivery Platform: Delivery Persons Perspective
Table of Contents
Family‟s Response to Delivery Work ................................................8
Theme ...................................................................................................2
Reason to Work as Delivery Partner ..................................................9
Income ..............................................................................................13
Introduction ..........................................................................................5
Feedback for Supervisors .................................................................14
Theme
About us
This preliminary exploratory study is authored by a group of graduate students from the School of Public Policy and Governance
pursuing Regulation and Institutions as their Policy Area Concentration. The current research programme covers different aspects of
platform economy with a focus on Food Delivery Platforms – Swiggy/Zomato etc.
Research Team:
Harshula
Adya Behera
Dissertation topic: Exploring the role of migrant
Dissertation topic: Impact of food delivery platforms population as a stakeholder in the online food delivery
on small restaurants in India. platform.
Vedant Kaul
Bharat Sharma
Dissertation topic: Regulation of labour in food
Dissertation topic: Labour entry and attrition of delivery platforms.
delivery partners working with the online food
delivery platforms.
Project Coordinator:
Key Findings
Introduction
The last decade has seen a shift in the traditional understanding of In an arrangement of this kind, organisations contract independent
what constitutes work, the nature of employment, and skills required workers for temporary and short-term engagements. The status of the
for being employed worldwide. In India, with the rapid expansion of workers in platforms like Swiggy and Ola Cabs is not that of an
service sector in urban and semi-urban areas, the forms of informal „employee‟ rather the „delivery partners‟, in the official terminology.
work have also evolved. Spurring this change is the parallel evolution There is no contract signed against terms of duty, benefits available,
and cheaper access to technology and internet services, facilitating the notice period etc. The platforms consider these workers to be self-
rise of platforms economies through companies like Swiggy, Ola, employed independent contractors, citing the freedom and flexibility
Uber, Zomato, Urban Clap, Airbnb etc. The nature of employment associated with working for these platforms. On the surface, there is
provided by such platforms to workers is temporary, on-demand work, little control exercised by the business over how the services are
considered gig work under the „platform economy‟. The participation delivered. However, gig workers around the world insist that they are
here can be regular or occasional, and can be done for primary or in fact employees, as seen in the Aslam, Farrar and Others vs Uber
supplementary earnings. (2016) case or the Pimlico Plumbers v Gary Smith (2017) in the UK,
among others. The reasoning behind the claim was that their wages
and terms of service are set by the company, and their work hours
impacted by the structure of incentives and penalties in place at these
businesses.
Objective
The objective of this study is to explore the emerging nature of Delivery persons belonged to online food delivery companies-
employment in the online food delivery companies, within the Indian Swiggy, Zomato and Uber Eats, as well as Shadowfax a third party
social context, by understanding entry, working status and condition delivery service provider to which Swiggy and Zomato outsources
and also exit from the job. some of its orders. The data collected through the survey was analysed
using STATA and Excel tools against secondary theoretical sources -
media articles, academic journals, and governmental policies - relevant
Methodology to the research.
1
Out of 158, 20 interviews were conducted by Pranjal Yadav from
School of Public Policy and Governance, data of the same was
integrated with our main dataset.
School of Public Policy and Governance 7
Respondent Profiles
Sumit Kumar is a thirty years old delivery partner working for Zomato. He
belongs to the OBC category and has studied till High School. He recently
migrated to Delhi and before joining Zomato, he was self-employed as a
farmer. Owing to less remuneration from farming, he decided to migrate. His
family-of-five continue to stay in their hometown in Madhya Pradesh. He plans
to continue working for Zomato in the immediate future.
On the other hand, twenty-one years old Chand recently started working for
Swiggy (worked for 15 days by then). He has a family business where they
make and sell bangles. He joined the platform to serve as an additional source
of Income. Currently, he is pursuing Intermediate and wants to complete
graduation. Tracing the path of one of his relatives, he wishes to learn German
and work abroad.
Figure 1
The two delivery partners mentioned above are a small subset of the Figure 1 depicts that majority of the respondents (85.4%) were Hindus
large set of 158 respondents covered in our survey. But their narratives and two-thirds of the Hindus (67.1%) belonged to General category.
are relevant enough to highlight the varied social background they Merely 1/6th (14.8%) of the respondents were from SC/ST category.
come from and the bigger picture that presents. This section, thus, Around 70% of the interviewed delivery partners were lying in the age
throws light on the social profile of the delivery partners who are part group of 18-30 years and only 5% were 40 years old or above.
of our data set. The profiling of the respondents (delivery partners) has
been conducted across five important categories relevant to the Indian Approximately three-fourth (76.6%) of the respondents had studied till
context - religion, caste, the age group to which they belong to, their Intermediate (12th standard) or below, rest being graduates or post-
level of education and the previous occupation (company). graduates. Before joining these food delivery platforms, half of the
interviewees were engaged as informal workers in the organized sector
and 41% were in the unorganized sector.
School of Public Policy and Governance 8
Figure 3
Figure 2
Figure 5
Figure 4
Figure 6 shows how majority of the people who bought assets to get
into the job had obtained loan via formal means. It is also important to In the Figure 7, asset ownership across delivery persons from different
note that for those obtaining loan, the existing social network did play caste backgrounds is shown.
a role. For instance, almost half of the respondents, who obtained loan,
obtained it through their relatives.
Figure 6 Figure 7
Asset Ownership and Social Dynamics: As the Figure suggests, prior ownership of the asset is important for
entering into this job market. At the same time most of the respondents
(67.1%) belong to the general category, which implies a correlation
In our survey, out of 158 interviews taken, all of the delivery partners between prior asset ownership and one‟s caste background. This
were male. The nature of work being such that the rider has to be on supports our argument that caste might play a role at entry into this
the road at odd hours for long duration with lack of support from the job but not beyond that .(Also see discussion on page 8)
platform in times of distress, it restricts entry of women. However, one
of the respondents mentioned that recently two women have joined
Uber Eats for delivery work, and that they travel together on a Scooty
to ensure their safety.
School of Public Policy and Governance 11
Working Hours:
Figure 9 shows working hours/day for delivery partners enrolled part-
For the delivery persons enrolled full time, table 1 and 2 shows what time. Herein we observed that 39 % of the part-time delivery partners
are the hours of work/week they spend on work. The category „0-8 work 5 to 8 hours a day and 42 % work above 12 hours a day. The
hours‟ in Figure 8 is the ILO standard working hours/day and category percentage of people actually working within official part-time
up to „12 hours/day‟ is the official working hours/day. The nature of working hours is only 19 % because of the incentive based income
wage system being based on piece rate and incentives makes the system which pushes them to work longer hours. The flexibility to
worker devote more hours for more income. In fact, 47 % of the full- work as per convenience, coupled with lack of compulsion to keep the
time delivery partners work for more than 12 hours a day and 18 % app open for 12 hours/day, is a major reason for the same.
among them even work above 15 hours per day.
Table 1 Table 2
Figure 8 Figure 9
School of Public Policy and Governance 12
Figure 10
A 24 year delivery partner reported not getting any orders once his work reached the delivered amount of Rs. 960, to get
incentive he had to reach 1000. As a result he ended up investing more time on work to get the incentive amount of Rs 250,
which eventually went in vain.
School of Public Policy and Governance 13
Income:
Table 4
Figure 12
School of Public Policy and Governance 14
Figure 13 Figure 14
Figure 13 shows rating given to field manager/team leader by the Figure 14 shows that a significant 21% of the people have never
respondents based on their experiences with them. It can be seen from interacted with the field manager. The reason for the same was mainly
the graph that almost 40% of the people in the case of Swiggy and their unavailability or even in some cases, no need to contact them.
Zomato have rated them less than 3 out of 5, based on the kind of help During the work time, delivery person faces a lot of issues like theft,
they get when in need. According to them, they are often unable to traffic, cancellation of order by customer, black zones etc.
reach their field managers on phone when in need of assistance.
A 26 year old delivery partner with Swiggy informed us about unsafe areas identified
across Delhi – such as Paharganj, Shakti Nagar, etc,
where incidents of theft often take place. He says he was in one such situation where he was threatened
with physical assault. Being unable to
get any help from the Field Manager, his call was diverted to Customer Care,
which was of no help. He ended up losing his phone and cash.
School of Public Policy and Governance 15
The rush to deliver food on time increases the risk of road accidents, as
experienced by multiple delivery partners interviewed. While these
food delivery apps list insurance as one of the benefits, these workers
are for the most part, unaware of the modalities of accessing insurance.
The impact of this can be seen from figure 15 below with only 1 out of
A delivery partner with Swiggy informed us that one of his friends
29 insurance claimants, actually getting it.
working in the same line lost his life on-duty. While driving
hurriedly to deliver food on time on a rainy day, his motor-cycle
slipped on the road, and as he skid next to a live wire, he died
from an electric shock. His family could not claim medical
insurance due to the grief of such a young death and the hassle of
making the claims.
Figure 15
One interviewee reported a fatal accident where he fractured his arm; he tried to contact his
Field Manager, who did not respond. Having paid for the medical expenses incurred all by
himself at the nearest hospital he was taken to, his claim for medical insurance went unfulfilled
despite months-long attempt. His arm took more than a month to heal, further restricting
him from working.
School of Public Policy and Governance 16
Figure 17
On being asked if they plan to continue this work or not, the delivery
partners‟ responses are almost split between „Yes‟ (41.9%) and „No‟
(45%), as demonstrated in Figure 17. While some of the workers
answering in the affirmative are satisfied with the job, others opt to
stay due to lack of alternative employment opportunities and do not
see the gig work as a lifelong source of earning. Meanwhile, those who
do not plan to stay see it as a junction in their career. The below two
responses roughly sum up majority of the responses of delivery
Figure 16
partners on being further probed over their responses.
“I’m looking for an office job so that I can sit and work. In this job, I have to be on the move all day long,” says Kishan,
who has been working as a delivery partner with Swiggy for over a year now. Meanwhile, Bunty who has been working
with Swiggy for 6 months tells, “I’m not planning to leave as of now, as I have to earn for my family… but it is clearly not a
job to do for a lifetime.”
School of Public Policy and Governance 17
This, among other factors, impacts the labour participation in the gig Table 3
Grand Total 52 99 49 60 18
Table 3 above shows the total responses along with the respondents‟
duration in the work. The data does not cover workers that have
already left the work, and since the respondents‟ answers may differ
from their future course of action, the findings thus arrived upon may
not fully represent the reality on the ground. Nevertheless, the findings
of this survey do coincide with other existing studies that point
towards high attrition rate in the gig economy.
Figure 18
School of Public Policy and Governance 18
Since more than half of the Delivery Partners aspired for some future
Aspirations: goal with multitude of aspirations, it is of vital importance to
understand the determinants of this aspiration. The analysis, thus, has
Suraj, twenty-four years old Graduate, has been working with Swiggy for looked into the desires or goals and not their achievement. It tries to
2 months, before which he owned a fruit-and-vegetables shop. His correlate the aspirations with the background of the delivery partner
business incurred heavy losses, due to which he had to find work as a food which includes social identity (caste), age and educational level.
delivery partner. He yearns to earn enough to recover all losses, and build
his business again with a stronger capital and market experience.
The Table 6 below gives the difference between three delivery Part Time Weekend:
platforms: Swiggy, Zomato and Uber Eats on a number of aspects,
collected during field research.
Part-Time weekend:
Table 6
21 delivery
orders: partners(Yes/No)
Rs 1000
27 Entry-level Assets: Same as Same as
orders: Requirements 1. Vehicle Swiggy Swiggy
Rs 1500 (delivery 2. Smartphone
(Android
partners)
Phone v 4.4.2)
Rs. 170 on Rs. 680 Weekend -
earnings 13 Other (including
Other incentive: orders: documents):
1. Rs 2000 for 24 Rs 300 1. Driving license
hrs shift 17 2. Aadhar Card
Rs. 650 for working orders: 3. PAN Card
the whole week Rs 550 4. Ear Phone
21 5. Bank Account
orders: Passbook (In
Rs 1000 the name of the
27 person
orders: applying)
Rs 1500
Penalty charged Rs. 500 for five order -NC -NC Zomato Cyclist:
on delivery rejections per week
10 order: 100/200(Piece-rate income) + 250(incentive earned) = 450
partners
Rs 500 fined for not 1-2 km:Rs 10
wearing uniform 2-3 km: Rs 20
If min.80 hour per week then Rs 500 more incentive
Part Time Weekend:
1 reject : Rs. 50 Note: Company provides battery bike by charging Rs. 700/week for
penalty one year.
2 rejects: all order now Working radius: 3km circle (For bikers it is 12km circle)
at Rs. 40