Meals on (my) Wheels: Food Delivery in the Gig Economy

Achim Hanne

When you order that kebab from Abrakebabra, or a late-night McDonald’s, it’s unlikely that you spare more than a passing thought for the person dropping it at your door. The fleet of cars, motorcycles, and electric scooters moving through New Zealand’s cities may not seem very sexy, but in just a few short years they’ve become a key part of the growing “gig economy”: a sector defined by contract work, without guaranteed hours, holidays, or job security—offering instead pay per job, flexible schedules, and—at least in theory—limitless earning potential.  

Let’s be real. The job market today sucks. AI is not just taking jobs; it’s screening candidates before we even reach an interview. Part-time or casual roles attract dozens—even hundreds—of applicants, while the jobs that do exist come with inconsistent hours, inconvenient shifts, and managers who remind you just how “lucky” you are to be employed at all. 

Since Uber arrived in New Zealand in 2014, rideshare companies have pitched themselves as a new way to earn. But if you’ve ever taken a rideshare home on the verge of throwing up in the back seat, you can probably understand why many potential drivers are looking for an alternative. For many of us, that alternative is food delivery. But is food delivery really all that great? Or is the hype simply the beleaguered spluttering of a dying job market?

I'm no stranger to the gig economy. Since starting university, I’ve been a mystery shopper, cycle marshal, exam supervisor, student ambassador, and security officer. These roles were  typically short-term or time-bond. And while I have worked alongside many great people, people don’t pay my rent—money does. So when it was time to look for a summer job last year, the adverts offering easy sign-ups and uncapped earnings were, for a student in a rural town with limited opportunities, impossible to ignore. 

I didn’t ignore them. In mid-November I grabbed a few insulated bags, threw on a high-vis vest, and got in my car—ready for my first round of food delivery orders.

I’m not alone. According to the 2023 census, there were over 7000 delivery drivers in New Zealand—up from about 5500 in 2018, and roughly half the size of the New Zealand Defence Force. In Stratford, a small rural town in Taranaki, I could encounter as many as four other drivers on a busy night, spread across multiple platforms. 

It is easy to see why. Doordash, Delivereasy, UberEats and others market themselves as a way to “be your own boss.” Delivereasy suggests drivers can earn upwards of $30 an hour, and every platform emphasises flexible hours. Unlike rideshare, you don’t have to let strangers into your car or make awkward small talk on the way to the airport. In fact, you might not even need a car at all—bikes and scooters will do, as long as you can deliver the goods safely and on time. 

So, how much did I actually earn? 

Let’s take one shift in the middle of the holiday period—December 8. I logged in at 2 p.m., but didn’t receive my first order until 3 p.m. This is perfectly typical. Most days, there was only a trickle of deliveries until around 4:30 p.m., when people started thinking about dinner. From just after 5 to 7:45 p.m. I had a steady flow of orders, with a few more trickling in later in the evening. 

By 10 p.m. I’d completed 14 deliveries over eight hours, earning $110.24—about $7.87 per order, or $13.78 per hour.

Bonuses improve things slightly. Between December 1 and 14, I earned $852.92 (including a $300 bonus) for 68 orders across 38 hours. That works out to $12.54 per order, or $22.45 per hour.

Not great. Not even minimum wage at times. But still more than I would have earned sitting at home.

I should stress that everyone’s experience of food delivery will vary based on where they are and who they work for. My experience delivering food in a town without even a McDonald’s will be very different to someone working in the centre of Wellington, which will be different again to someone in a non-university town like Napier or Invercargill. Likewise, a driver for Doordash will have a very different experience compared to someone driving for Delivereasy or UberEats. These numbers should, however, serve as an insight into the realities of the industry.

And it's not just about pay. 

As a contractor, you’re responsible for all your own expenses—including fuel and mobile data, both of which you’ll use far more than in most conventional jobs. On an average delivery day, I would make sure to put $20 in the tank as I made my first deliveries. On particularly busy days, I’d have to do this again later in the night. That’s about $30 in fuel on a regular shift. 

In December, I was paying about $2.60-2.75 cents per litre at my local petrol station. Today, with the world apparently set on ending before we all graduate, the same amount of fuel would cost me over $38, at $3.44 cents a litre. Add to that the price of mobile data—whether through data hours or monthly plans—and very soon that $850 paycheck starts to lose its lustre. 

As a contractor, you’re also responsible for your own taxes. While services such as Hnry market themselves as easy—even cheap—ways to navigate the system, it is still one more thing to think and pay for when you’re juggling those 9 p.m. kebab orders.

That brings us back to the core question: is it worth it being a delivery driver? 

If you can find a normal job, then frankly, the answer is no. 

While you can certainly earn more than minimum wage in food delivery (my best two-week period saw me earn $1223 for 37 hours work—averaging $33 an hour), this was offset by fuel and data costs and largely depended on working peak hours or covering busy periods. Working eight hours a day, five days a week will not guarantee a stable hourly rate. It’s about demand, not your availability—and often means long stretches sitting in your car or at home, waiting for the chime of an order notification with nothing to show for it. 

However, if you can’t find a job—or need something to help cover the bills alongside one—then food delivery may be your best option.

In theory, gig work is a great way to earn extra cash or supplement an income. Its flexibility should incentivise platforms to attract drivers and to treat them fairly to maintain market share. But for far too many people, gig work—whether rideshare, food delivery or something else—is the first, last, and only option available to them. Food delivery (like rideshare) is an inherently unethical business model: it charges users as much as it reasonably can while paying drivers as little as possible.

While some companies try to make it more attractive, the reality is that most people simply cannot engage with gig work the way it was supposedly designed. The “gig economy” has ballooned from a sideshow into a way of life for many—and not because everyone is just really keen to drive a car around town or or spend their days on campus selling mattresses.

It's not like the government is listening to the contractors’ concerns either. According to RNZ, Uber representatives met with Workplace Relations Minister Brooke Van Velden in May 2024, proposing changes to the Employment Relations Act very similar to the amendments announced by her office later in the year and passed into law this February.  The changes effectively overturned a Supreme Court decision recognising four Uber drivers as employees, which had found that the idea of drivers operating independent businesses was unrealistic. Rather than address these concerns or protect workers with few alternatives, the government has sided with business interests.

Yet despite all this—despite the long periods of nothing, the unpredictability, the mess—I have enjoyed my foray into delivery driving. Cruising down back-country roads with Chappell Roan at full blast, the quiet of evenings with no other cars in sight. I’ve delivered all sorts of weird and wonderful orders across town—from a single tub of ice-cream at 7 p.m, to a pair of mango lassis barely contained within an almost-lidless container. I don’t think I’ve ever driven more carefully in my life. 

But perhaps I’m lucky. The Manners-Willis intersection now features a  DeliverEasy ad celebrating its partnership with Adulttoymegastore. Stratford is a small town, and while I’m more than happy to drop off my neighbour’s spicy butter chicken, there are some spicy things I simply never want to know about them.

Deliveries

+ Bonuses

-  Fuel

-  Data

-  Taxes

___________

= Profit?