SUMMARY
Goyal said Zomato has reached 230K delivery partners this month
The average income of delivery partners is around INR 9,400
There have been protests for pay revision recently
Gurugram-based food delivery and restaurant aggregation platform Zomato has been in the limelight over the last month for its deep discounting and #LogOut campaign by its partner restaurants. However, the company’s delivery partners don’t seem to be impacted at all and seem to have much more to rejoice.
In a tweet, Deepinder Goyal, cofounder and CEO, Zomato said that the company has paid INR 216 Cr as salaries to its delivery partners. Goyal also said that the company has reached 230K delivery partners this month. This is effectively over 210% growth in delivery partners, when compared to 74K last September.
The company further said that it has positively impacted 1.1 Mn families. Goyal also clarified that delivery partners who execute deliveries 8 hours a day, 5 days a week take home around INR 20,000 every month.
The average payout comes to around INR 9,400 and the company claimed that was because many delivery partners deliver part-time and do not process enough deliveries every month.
The relationship between companies and their delivery partners has been complicated across the sectors. For instance, Zomato has had a complicated relationship with its food delivery partners. The company has received flak for mistreating its riders, which have led to protests and frequent strikes by them.
In August, the protests by Zomato delivery partners started with a demand for pay revision, with protesting delivery executives claiming that a delivery trip that fetched them INR 80 was revised to INR 25 a trip.
Even though the story on social media is of appreciation for delivery partners and their talents, there are many challenges in the blue collar job across industries.
The Challenges In Blue Collar Industry
The industry has been facing ire of customers as well as companies, especially after losing out initial attractive incomes. In terms of benefits, cab driver partners have time and again protested citing lesser earnings due to low wages and not being able to repay debts.
For the longest time, Uber has been facing the ire of various labour organisations for classifying drivers as contractors or “partners” under American federal and state laws, instead as employees. The relief came when US National Labour Relations Board said that Uber drivers are independent contractors and not employees.
Along the same lines, the delivery executives in the food industry have larger issues to solve, beyond the monthly incomes and social media support.
