China’s Public Attention for Delivery Drivers’ Safety

A Chinese food delivery courier is on his way to fulfill customer orders. (Quintype)

An essay detailing the hazardous work conditions of China’s food delivery drivers went viral on China’s major social media platforms after September 8, causing a moment of national reckoning regarding negligent harm to the working class. 

A Chinese journalistic magazine, People, first aroused awareness by publishing an investigative report titled “Food Delivery Drivers, Trapped by the System.” It reveals that in Shanghai, on average, a delivery driver is injured or killed every 2.5 days in a traffic accident during work. This data from the first half of 2017, provided by Shanghai Municipal Public Security Bureau, implies a more appalling statistic if it accounted for the entire country.

China has a uniquely large food delivery industry, which has gained unprecedented scale due to highly developed technology and changes in Chinese people’s lifestyles. Takeout apps on phones provide convenience and a greater variety of food options for young people who are working long hours. By the end of 2019, the number of food delivery consumers reached 460 million, roughly half of the country's Internet user population. Data analysis company Analysys International reports that the overall transaction size of China's takeout market has reached 195 billion yuan (about $27.4 billion). Alibaba’s Ele.me and Tencent-backed Meituan are the two leading delivery services, controlling almost the entire food delivery market. 

While food delivery platforms boast increasingly fast delivery thanks to state-of-the-art technology, the lofty goals that the algorithms set for drivers are often attainable only by dashing through places and breaking traffic rules. The machines stringently penalize late delivery and fail to fully factor in real-life variables like weather and traffic, putting drivers’ lives at risk. To avoid bad reviews from customers and wage cuts from employers, drivers dash and honk pedestrians out of their way to be on time. Within the first six months of 2019, Shanghai recorded 325 injuries and deaths involving food and parcel delivery drivers alone, accounting for nearly 70 percent of the city’s accidents. 

Multiple Chinese state newspapers called for greater protections and “more humane” management of food delivery drivers after the report was published. A renowned commentator affiliated with China Central Television News has suggested government regulations and more leniency from the customers. The statistics and profiles spreading across the Internet have pushed the two delivery platforms to make adjustments immediately. However, the current response by Ele.me—having users choose if they are willing to wait for five more minutes—has been unsatisfactory. Shanghai Consumer Council has explicitly disapproved of the response in a press conference, stating that such action directs the blame to consumers, while the actual sources of the issue are the stringent algorithm and mismanagement of the platforms. The council further proposed that the platforms organize and allocate incoming orders more reasonably, as well as take into account different scenarios in its computational models.