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I moved to Beijing this month, one of a trickle of correspondents recently granted entry to mainland China after expulsions and the pandemic drained our numbers. On my first evening, I ordered some paracetamol on the popular delivery app Meituan. It arrived in 20 minutes, brought to my hotel room by an affable, metre-tall white robot. “Thank you, see you again soon,” it chirped before rolling away.
This was a novelty for someone who had come from the technological backwater of Hong Kong, where newspaper stands, trams, diesel engines and cash keep you firmly rooted in the last century. Suddenly, I was thrown into the dazzling array of apps and automation that eases friction in this sprawling metropolis — from services such as ride hailing, housekeeping and food delivery to a hotel elevator equipped with facial recognition technology that automatically whisks me to the correct floor.
But as I explored my new home, it became clear that much of this frictionless existence was only possible because of a silent army of drivers. The white robot had arrived at my door, but it still took a human to ferry the $2 pack of drugs late at night. While delivery drivers are a familiar sight in cities worldwide, as consumers shun supermarket trips and frying pans, China relies most heavily on them.
The country has the largest ecommerce market in the world, with $2.2tn in sales last year, according to GlobalData. This is facilitated by legions of predominantly young male rural migrants donning the yellow and blue uniforms of Meituan and Alibaba’s Ele.ma delivery platforms, often paid as little as Rmb5 (less than a dollar) per delivery.
China has 84mn workers employed to deliver services ordered on apps, according to a survey last year by the All-China Federation of Trade Unions. These gig workers make up around 10 per cent of the total working population. By contrast, in the UK gig workers account for 1.4 per cent of a labour force of 32.5mn, according to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.
Many of the delivery platforms reward drivers for speed and working in bad weather when demand soars. Those with high scores get priority with new orders, allowing them to reject unprofitable ones. Several times, I have waited for an elevator next to a man in a yellow suit and helmet anxiously hitting the button, muttering under his breath that it was taking too long. One told me he typically does 20 to 30 deliveries a day. “There is no money to be made in China. You can make money in foreign countries and Hong Kong. But not here,” he said, before charging out of the lift.
The pressure for speed encourages dangerous driving, and Beijing has introduced regulations to improve working conditions, including enforced breaks and better pay. But Beijing-based labour lawyer Yang Baoquan said that while there have been “improvements”, they have not been “significant”. “Demand for delivery is too high. The development of the industry has been so quick and competition is fierce. The platforms have to compete on price and timing to steal customers. And there is no shortage of workers looking for employment,” he said.
This is a challenge for the companies which, faced with slowing consumption at home and intense competition from rivals like PDD Holdings and ByteDance’s Douyin, are scouting out new markets. Meituan, PDD and ByteDance are all testing variants of their ecommerce platforms outside of mainland China. But where else combines the large market, infrastructure, abundance of cheap workers and loose labour laws that would enable them to replicate the hyper-efficient delivery system that has become so embedded in Chinese daily life? It works not because of superior algorithms or supply chains but because companies can mobilise millions of workers on low pay and long hours.
Walking through the Sanlitun shopping complex last week at sunset, I saw a rare moment of joy for yellow-helmeted workers. Six were gathered on a bench, soaking in the last of the fading sunshine and laughing together. That was before they restarted their journey, keeping this city running.
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