Think Anyway.I’ve entered the food delivery business because it’s a profitable industry; the monthly wages in a factory are around 6,000 to 7,000 yuan (US$900 to US$1,050) at best, but as a delivery worker, I can make roughly 10,000 yuan (roughly US$1,500) if I work hard enough,” says a Chinese delivery worker in a documentary titled Report on the Condition of Delivery Workers in China. For many, being a delivery worker brings more earnings, more freedom, and less toil in concealed factories.
In China, delivery workers in colorful jackets are delivering food, medicine, electronics, and practically everything you can think of within twenty minutes in most cases at barely any cost. The development of food delivery has boosted the Chinese employment rate after nearly half a decade of decline. However, China’s rising delivery industry hides a worrying issue: the fourteen million delivery workers who have dedicated their labor to its advancement, in practice, are becoming what some has referred to as China's most obvious underclass.
Delivery work is attractive in China as the current employment environment is unfavorable to workers. Following China’s Reform and Opening Up that began in the late 1970s, millions of farmers migrated into major cities for economic opportunities. In the past decade, China’s once rapid economic growth has slowed down. In July 2026, the country’s youth unemployment rate hit an eleven-year high. The number of delivery drivers is sixteen million, which provides much-needed relief for China’s employment pressure. For migrant workers, recent graduates, as well as those who have been recently laid-off, delivery work is a lifeline that allows them to stay in urban centers and to provide for their families. In fact, as cultural anthropologist at Hong Kong Polytechnic University points out, delivery work now functions increasingly as social safety-net for middle class and recent college graduates.
“I’ve been a delivery worker for eight years. In the past, we’d get orders with delivery fees of around 10 to 15 yuan (US$1.5 to US$2.25), and I could make 200 or even 300 yuan (US$30 to US$45) in a few hours. But now, I’d be lucky to make four yuan for every delivery, that is, if I can get any orders,” Chen, a delivery worker in Beijing, says, “I’ve got a son and two parents to feed in my hometown, if this keeps up, I’ll have difficulties making ends meet.” Demand for online delivery has risen significantly in the past few years, but unfortunately for the industry, so has the number of workers and competing firms. Profit for delivery firms has been increasing, while income for delivery workers is declining. For instance, revenue for delivery giant Meituan increased by 26 percent or more than US$10 billion from 2022-2023. Meanwhile, for the same period, delivery drivers’ monthly income went from US$1,090.9 to US$957.6. Still, as the economy continues to stagnate and the economy slows down, more workers have turned to delivery work as their last resort.
To minimize costs while maintaining a large workforce, delivery firms created crowdsourcing platforms. In early 2024, the Chinese government began drafting regulations to protect labor rights for those in the platform economy, including delivery workers. The new protection includes minimum wage protection and protection from overwork. To divest themselves from the legal obligations, the delivery firms turned to crowdsourcing platforms. These platforms are a third-party gig platforms that integrates delivery workers and offers them work as independent contractors rather than contracted workers for the delivery firms. As researcher at London School of Economics, Dayuan Xiong finds, delivery firms like Meituan began to hire workers on the crowdsourcing platform as they are not bound to any specific firm according to their contract, greatly solving the worker shortage problem which has troubled the delivery industry for many years. In 2015, the first crowdsourcing platforms went online and quickly took over the market. By 2026, over 75 percent of delivery workers in China are working for crowdsourcing platforms.
Crowdsourcing platforms took advantage of this and branded themselves as a convenient alternative to engaging with the delivery platforms. As scholar of labor and human resources at Renmin University, Qingjun Wu discovers, a thirty-minute application process to become a delivery worker on crowdsourcing platforms is much more convenient than an offline interview selection process for delivery firms, which makes it a better choice for some. Therefore, the long-term downsides of not having a written contract are often neglected during this process. There are other reasons for workers to enter this unsecured employment arrangement—sometimes it’s the long mandatory training hours before signing a contract, other times it is simply not knowing that signing a labor contract with the delivery firms is available since the main delivery platforms only have offices in large towns and cities. Regardless of the reasons, the crowdsourcing platforms have blurred responsibility between employers and employees, and workers are often denied their rights to protection and equitable pay due to the absence of labor relations.
Through crowdsourcing platforms, delivery firms further worsened the condition of the delivery workers. First, delivery firms gained a pricing advantage through the number of delivery workers it can utilize, as only a small number of selected delivery platforms have access to third-party gig platforms. Economists at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Professor Yue Yuan and his colleagues point out in “Labor Disputes in Gig Economy: Evidence from the Online Delivery Platform in China” that with their exceptionally strong bargaining power acquired from the surge in working population mentioned before, delivery firms can and have freely reduced delivery fees and simply dismiss anyone who does not wish to comply.
In recent months, the Chinese government initiated a variety of regulations of tech companies, including those in the rapidly expanding delivery industry. For instance, the State Administration of Market Regulation (SAMR) has deemed the price wars between the three main delivery firms, Meituan, Taobao Flash and JD, as “irrational competition.” It is one of the first steps to crack their monopoly. Moreover, the SAMR summoned the firms to address other issues, including the legal rights of the delivery workers. There is also a plan to include seven million delivery workers in trade unions in the next five years. Some local governments have also taken steps to address the welfare of the delivery workers. For instance, in Guangdong Province from October 1, 2026, delivery drivers can refuse assignments if the packaging is inadequate or the restaurant is unsanitary. These are all worthy efforts to improve the lives of delivery workers. However, without addressing the unemployment problems that more and more young people are facing, as well as the continued dominance of the delivery firms and other tech giants, the plight of delivery workers will unfortunately continue.
China has made remarkable advancements in the past decade, leading the world in integrating technology into daily life. Granted, this has made life more convenient for many people, but the nameless workers who have unfortunately become the steppingstone towards this glamorous lifestyle should not be neglected, and the challenge China faces today is how to make its words of equality really count.