China’s gig economy booms as blistering heat leaves workers exposed

[BEIJING] On a scorching morning in Beijing, Hao and a dozen other food delivery drivers sweltered outside a hot-pot restaurant. They smoked. They swiped through videos. They waited for the next round of lunch orders from people wise enough to stay indoors.

Hao, like most of China’s 200 million gig workers, is eligible by law to receive a “heat wave allowance”, or danger money for those required to work for hours in extreme heat conditions. He should be paid at least 180 yuan ($32) per month when the heat crosses 35 deg C. The city had already breached that, with the mercury heading fast towards 40 deg C that week. But he has not seen a penny.

“I have never heard of a company benefit for working in a heat wave,” said Hao, who’s been clocking 10 hour days on his scooter for five years now. He declined to use his full name for fear of reprisals from his employer. Hao’s not alone – most drivers have never received a payment.

When the sun turns cities such as Beijing into gridded ovens, demand for deliveries spike. The hotter it gets, the more orders pour in. For platforms such as Alibaba Group Holding’s Ele.me, Meituan and JD.com – some of China’s largest food delivery sites – the math is simple: sweating riders equal happy customers.

For their part, the companies say they do support workers. JD.com is offering full-time riders a hot weather allowance, the firm said, without elaborating on the details. Meituan is taking measures including the use of heatstroke prevention insurance from this month. Ele.me did not respond to a request for comment, though it has previously implemented programmes which provided drivers with “summer cooling supplies”.

For Hao and millions like him, the rush of orders mean he maybe earns an extra yuan per hour, or roughly 14 US cents. Not even enough for a cold bottle of water. Heat wave allowances are only given by companies that are willing to comply with the law, and with China’s slowing economy pushing more than one in five workers to gig work, competition for jobs is fierce and few are willing to negotiate for better benefits.

By contrast, employees at government agencies and state-owned enterprises often jump online to boast of their own “heatstroke prevention subsidies”, cash bonuses, early leave, even vacations in state-run seaside resorts. There’s no hiding the irony that China’s gig workers, a growing group of mostly younger people, are some of the least protected in the biggest communist country in the world.

“Those who ‘enjoy’ the heat waves don’t enjoy allowances, and those who enjoy allowances don’t taste the heat waves,” one user quipped on Weibo, one of China’s most used social media sites.

The haves and haves-nots story is not new, but climate change is making it starker. And deadlier.

In 2024, China recorded its hottest year on record. And the three previous years were all among the top five for highest annual temperatures since the 1960s. According to The Lancet, yearly heat wave-related deaths in China have now nearly doubled compared with 1986 to 2005, with more than 37,000 deaths in 2023 alone, the most recent full-year data.

The risk, however, is not equally shared. Delivery drivers, street vendors, and construction workers bear the brunt. And when they collapse, few safety nets catch them.

A study published last year analysing 1,200 food drivers and 580,000 meal orders found that during heat waves, gig workers saw a 9 per cent increase in hourly orders, worked 6 per cent longer hours, and earned only one yuan more per hour, in part because of an increase in penalties from delayed deliveries.

Meanwhile, their out-of-pocket health costs to treat heatstroke and other harms, such as worsening pre-existing cardiovascular and respiratory conditions, averaged over 500 yuan during the summer peak.

“Most couriers don’t realise the health costs until they are sick and hospitalised, without medical insurance,” said Susan Feng Lu, co-author of the study and professor at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. “Consumers benefit from staying protected indoors, yet the burden of health risks falls heavily on gig workers.”

The human cost is growing harder to ignore. At least 51 workers died of heatstroke in the last three years, according to an analysis by laodongqushi.com, a platform that focuses on China’s labour data and news. But that’s likely only a tiny fraction of the true total, partly due to difficulties attributing heat as a cause of death as well as efforts by authorities to restrict data.

By law, outdoor work is supposed to be limited to less than six hours when temperatures cross 37 deg C and suspended when it hits 40 deg C. But enforcement is largely limited to those in formal employment. Gig workers fall through the legal cracks.

Just like ride hailing and food delivery apps the world over, Chinese gig work employers pitch their jobs as flexible, entrepreneurial, and empowering. But freedom, critics argue, is just a euphemism for exclusion: no benefits and virtually no labour protections.

Almost half of China’s platform workers do not have any social insurance coverage, and fewer than a third of the total working population have insurance for work-related injuries, research shows.

Under criticism from lawmakers, the platforms have been adding some benefits. Meituan previously committed to “gradually contribute to social insurance for full-time and stable part-time delivery drivers” from the second quarter of this year, and said in its statement that it has a “high-temperature care fund” that attaches an extra delivery fee to each eligible order. JD.com has begun to offer additional assistance to full-time drivers and is “committed to ensuring our riders’ wellbeing during this period of hot weather”, the firm said.

But some say that does not go far enough.

“What workers give and what they receive are not equal,” said Han Dongfang, a renowned labour activist for Chinese workers. “If they were paid fairly, they would be able to take better care of themselves during heat waves.”

While climate and public health experts call for a stronger system to raise public awareness of the risks of heatstroke, employers and state media often glorify a Soviet-style hard-working spirit, implying heat waves are a challenge that workers must confront.

A national television segment in 2023 aired a glowing feature about construction workers “fighting the temperature” at a sweltering site, where a thermometer reading showed one surface had reached 68 deg C. The workers, the report implied, were heroes.

And though China’s lawmakers have floated proposals for expanding social protections for gig workers, and local governments trumpet initiatives to safeguard health each summer, little actually changes.

China’s top communist party cadres, government employees, and military officers, meanwhile, escape the heat to seaside towns such as Beidaihe, a summer retreat destination once popular with leaders including chairman Mao Zedong. Hundreds of hotels and sanatoriums are exclusive to government workers, who spend their summers at the cool town when the heat turns Beijing into a furnace.

Delivery drivers can expect more performative and vastly smaller luxuries from employers. A bottle of cold tea. A bowl of mung bean soup. A slice of watermelon.

“Who needs a cup of cold tea at a station ten kilometres away on a hot day?” Han, the labour activist, said. “What you need is a functional labour union that protects workers’ rights.”

The temperature in Beijing climbed another degree. Hao climbed back onto his scooter. The next order was ready. Someone wanted a cold bubble tea. BLOOMBERG