The Precarious Professional Lives of the Instant Delivery Workforce
A Georgetown University researcher asked DC gig workers about their experiences during the pandemic: “It’s a very bad job if you are not prepared to fight.”
A delivery worker waits for an order at Chef Geoff's restaurant in Washington, DC, in March 2020. Food delivery services provided a lifeline for many restaurants during the pandemic.
Photographer: Andrew Harrer/BloombergGeorgetown University researcher Katie Wells had been studying the work lives of 40 Uber drivers in Washington, DC, for almost five years when Covid-19 hit. With ride-hailing services on hold, she noticed that many of them pivoted to food instead of passengers, taking delivery gigs with companies like UberEats, Instacart, DoorDash and GrubHub.
Demand for home delivery was soaring, and grocery and meal delivery seemed to promise less exposure to the virus. The legions of gig workers who took to the streets in cars, bikes, motorcycles and scooters to feed households in lockdown were also widely cheered as “essential workers” that were keeping local restaurants and retailers alive during the early days of the pandemic. And Wells had a lot of questions about their experiences.