Food delivery workers face growing extreme weather risks: study

When heavy rain hits Vancouver, Al Hafiz Mohamed Abdalla sees a chance to earn more. The 25-year-old e-bike courier said a delivery offering $3 on a dry day can pay $6 in the rain when fewer riders are willing to work.

“When the rain is coming down, people are going inside. That’s my chance,” Abdalla said.

That opportunity comes with risks. A recent University of Victoria study found that financial pressure could keep food couriers riding through dangerous weather, even when they feared injury. The study is based on interviews with 50 couriers and focuses on riders using bikes, e-bikes and other vehicles that offer little protection from the weather.

“The hazards that workers faced were not just hypothetical,” said Anelyse Weiler, the study’s co-author. A Toronto courier described falling onto a snowy road after hitting an opening car door and recalled other falls in rain and snow that he feared could have been fatal in heavier traffic.

App-based platforms such as UberEats and DoorDash in Canada heavily rely on new immigrants and international students facing barriers to traditional employment, creating a workforce increasingly forced to absorb the shocks of a changing climate, Weiler said.