I have not been able to find another job, I love cycling, and I know the city — so I have been trying out working as food delivery rider for uber.
The lesson from 19.5 hours in is that it pays far below miniumum wage, even before considering any expenses.
At JJ International Inc at 438 Spadina I bought a large two-shelf insulated backpack for food deliveries for $84.76.
Since my total revenues, revenues per hour, revenues per delivery, and revenues per kilometre were all dismal in the first few days, I took a Smart Serve course in order to be able to carry deliveries with alcohol. The course took about 3 hours and cost $44.95.
Just now, I had to take a break from a Saturday night shift to go home because all my external phone batteries are dead.
In sum, so far:
- I have been online for 19 hours and 18 minutes.
- I have ridden 153 km.
- I have earned $150.04 ($116.55 in fares and $34.39 in tips).
- That works out to about $7.69 per hour, which is a considerable over-statement because it doesn’t count the riding time required to get into the high density zones with many restaurants or to ride back home.
- It took basically 17 hours of work to pay for the carrier bag and Smart Serve certificate.
All told, a person would be far better off working at the Ontario minumum wage of $16.55 than doing deliveries for uber eats by bike.
