The average wage of a Deliveroo ‘rider’, or food delivery courier, was as low as €9.2 per hour in recent years and is continuing to decrease.
Between the beginning of 2018 and 2020, around 10,000 courier runs were analysed by the Christian trade union CSC-United Freelancers to better understand the wages, according to a report by Bruzz.
“That €9/hour does not yet include costs such as the rental of an electric bicycle, the mobile phone subscription, or appropriate clothing for cycling. Moreover, the couriers then still have no social rights, such as insurance against illness or accident, unemployment or pension rights," said CSC-United Freelancers’ Martin Willems.
He explained that this wage was what couriers who work according to the peer-to-peer statute (around 85%) earn after deducting the 10% income tax they have to pay and added that this figure had decreased since the observation period.
For the remaining 15% of couriers who work independently, the hourly wage is 70 cents higher at €9.9, but, as Willems pointed out, “self-employed people often also have more costs.”
The union has been calling on platforms such as Deliveroo or UberEats, which often highlight the presumed desire for “freedom and flexibility” their delivery drivers get in job advertisements, to give these riders a real employee status.
"Then they would have to respect certain minimum rates of the transport sector. Couriers would then earn €13.9. And the companies themselves would pay over €21 per hour per courier, more than double what they are willing to pay today,” said Willems.
According to reports, the couriers of Deliveroo and Uber Eats receive just under €5 per delivery. But the number of deliveries they can make per hour varies a lot, for example depending on the distance, the time of day, the day of the week or the weather.
In the UK, Deliveroo couriers can earn as little as £2 (€2.32) an hour, according to a recent analysis by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism of invoices.
Lauren Walker
The Brussels Times
