Hong Kong food delivery rider John Lam* cannot afford to make a single mistake while working.
The 40-year-old takes extreme care while delivering orders on his motorcycle, knowing that if he has a work-related accident he will receive few employment benefits and minimal compensation.
“I understand that being highly responsive to my phone can lead to more orders. But for safety reasons, I only handle my phone when my vehicle has completely stopped,” said Lam, who delivers food for the city’s two online platforms, Foodpanda and Meituan’s Keeta.
“The risk of an accident simply isn’t worth gaining an order slightly faster. I prioritise safe driving and rarely weave through traffic, even on a motorcycle, because road conditions are unpredictable.”
Lam, who put his earnings at HK$45,000 (US$5,730) to HK$50,000 a month on average from a 10-hour shift six days a week, said he was fully aware of the risks when he started working with online food delivery platforms five years ago, but the money was too good to pass up.
“While consistent food delivery work can lead to a very good income, the major downside is that it leaves couriers like me without essential basic and labour protections,” he said. “It would be nice if the government regulated the industry, granting us employee status and entitling us to annual leave, sick leave and a pension.”
Lam – who is among the thousands of Hongkongers making a living in the so-called gig economy, a labour market commonly characterised by temporary or freelance work, usually through digital platforms such as Uber, Foodpanda and Keeta – is not alone in calling for the industry to be regulated.
But what form should the regulations take and how can workers be best protected?
Secretary for Labour and Welfare Chris Sun Yuk-han told lawmakers in May that the government would introduce proposals to further enhance platform workers’ rights and benefits within the year, adding that authorities would consider reinforcing protections for them through legislative means.
Sun’s remarks came on the heels of several strikes by Keeta workers, whose demands included increasing their pay per order, better protection and higher safeguards against illegal workers.
Some flexibility required?
While workers who spoke to the Post urged authorities to regulate the gig economy, experts cautioned against overregulating that mode of employment and potentially stifling the inherent flexibility of such work.
In Hong Kong, those working for food delivery and ride-hailing platforms are among the most visible members of the gig economy. The city had as many as 64,000 online delivery couriers and 50,000 app-based ride-hailing and taxi drivers in 2023, according to calculations by the Legislative Council Secretariat’s research office.
A survey commissioned by the Labour Department and conducted between December 2023 and March 2024 found that nearly 13,000 people had worked for food and goods delivery digital platforms in the previous year.
The city does not have legislation specifically covering digital platform workers, who are usually classified as self-employed. They are normally not entitled to benefits such as paid annual leave and sick leave as stipulated under the Employment Ordinance, payouts for work-related injuries under the Employees’ Compensation Ordinance, or minimum wage protection.
Delivery rider Ahmad, 32, knows all about the perils of the gig economy after falling off his motorbike and injuring his back while dropping off an order for Keeta in early April.
“When I was injured and couldn’t work for 10 days, I had zero income. In my line of work, more effort means more pay, and sometimes rushing to get ahead can lead to accidents. It’s not just about covering living costs. If something serious happened to me, my family wouldn’t know how to cope,” said Ahmad, who asked to be identified by his first name only.
The Hong Kong resident, who came from Indonesia eight years ago, said he earned around HK$30,000 a month but had “barely anything left” after paying HK$8,000 in rent for his subdivided unit in Mong Kok, tutoring fees for his two children and household expenses.
Keeta provides its couriers with personal accident insurance, but Ahmad said the process had been frustrating as he was constantly passed between the insurer and the platform. Such insurance protection is not mandated for gig workers under the law.
“The staff of the company’s online chat room directed me to the insurance provider, which only communicates via WhatsApp. After you submitted all your injury documents and receipts, they went silent, leaving me in limbo with no idea when my claim would be processed,” he said.
“When you try to follow up with your company, they just send you back to the insurer.”
He said he hoped the government’s regulatory efforts would help to enhance delivery riders’ labour rights, including making companies sign up their gig workers on full-time contracts that would include clear clauses on salary levels and workplace injury compensation.
Ahmad, who joined the strikes against Keeta, said he did so as the payment per order he received fell from an average of HK$50 to HK$28 after rival platform Deliveroo pulled out of Hong Kong in April.
Other riders believed that a proper legal framework could also help deter illegal workers from working for delivery platforms and competing with them for orders.
“If platforms formalise an employer-employee relationship with their workers through contracts, it will effectively close the grey area that stops individuals not legally allowed to work by using accounts opened by others,” said Mark Chan*, a delivery rider who now mainly works for Keeta.
Driving down pay
Labour-sector lawmaker Kwok Wai-keung said a union had estimated that 30 per cent of couriers were illegal workers, predominantly non-refoulement claimants, who hold a recognisance form, commonly known as a “going-out pass”, to stay in the city. They operated by renting accounts opened by Hong Kong residents, he said.
Hong Kong grants non-refoulement status to individuals seeking protection from being returned to a country where they face a substantial risk of torture, cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or persecution. As of 2024, there were 15,800 claimants in the city.
Chan said legitimate account owners first scanned their faces on the food delivery platform’s mobile app before renting the phone to the illegal workers to start their shifts.
“They tend to be more willing to take orders with a lower rate, which drives down prices for legitimate delivery riders who usually take higher-paying orders,” he said. “They are working illegally, yet they are taking food off our tables.”
Chan said Keeta’s system could be fooled by simply scanning a picture, while rival Foodpanda used 3D facial scans three times a day to ensure the identity of the riders.
He also hoped that the government’s regulatory efforts would ensure that gig workers received annual leave and paid sick leave regardless of whether they were on full-time or freelance contracts, which would guarantee them an income if they could not work.
“Contracts should also offer the flexibility we currently have to choose fewer working hours, allowing us to attend to personal matters or take on other jobs at other times,” he said.
Heiwai Tang, associate dean and professor of economics at the University of Hong Kong’s business school, said several methods were used elsewhere to regulate the gig economy.
In the US, the approach was more decentralised, he said, with each state and city dealing with the issue in its own way.
“One example is New York, where they required platform economy workers, which included those driving for Uber or delivering food for these platforms, to have minimum wage coverage,” he said.
“This has led to the price of service increasing, which was then transferred on to consumers, leading to a drop in the demand for services, where some gig economy workers end up losing their jobs.”
He said Singapore had taken a more proactive approach to regulating the gig economy through the Platform Workers Act. The law requires platforms to treat workers similarly to employees, with operators asked to provide work injury compensation and contribute to their pension fund.
The law, which came into effect in January, also includes provisions to allow workers and platforms to form their own associations for formal collective representation.
“These measures have led to the costs of the platform companies to have increased,” Tang said. “In Singapore, some platforms have expressed the opinion that these measures would lead to an increase in costs for consumers, which may then lead to decreased demand for services provided by platform workers.”
In mainland China, the leaders of different provinces and cities would simply demand that platforms treat their workers better, and they would respond correspondingly by providing higher pay or better welfare, the academic said.
‘Big burden’
Looking at Hong Kong, Tang said the ideal regulatory regime should include sufficient protection against workplace injuries, as well as safeguards against platforms using overly aggressive algorithms that put too much pressure on workers, such as penalties for running a few minutes late.
There should also be a legal definition for gig workers and a body set up where all stakeholders in the industry could communicate with each other.
But Tang said it was important to maintain the flexibility of gig work as overregulation could turn people off from taking up these types of jobs.
“The appearance of these platforms shows there is a clear demand for them; some people really need this flexibility,” he said.
“A gig worker should not be seen as a worker who has a nine-to-five job that has the protections of minimum wage, maximum working hours or contributions to their MPF. If you do too much, everyone will lose.”
Unionist lawmaker Lam Chun-sing is among those who believe in the importance of flexibility, saying gig workers should not be classified as full-time employees, as this would result in higher costs for platform operators while workers would lose some freedom.
Lam pointed to Britain’s three-tier employment status model as an example, with categories of employee, worker and self-employed. Employees have full employment rights, while the self-employed receive the least protection. The middle tier, workers, have limited rights such as the minimum wage and holiday pay.
He said the Hong Kong government should consider defining a third type of employment mode for gig workers, which would entitle them to some of the protections that were offered to full-time employees.
“I think this would be an easier solution, as these platform companies would not have to treat these workers as employees, which is a very big burden,” he said.
“The other thing is that people also want to have more freedom, where they would be fine with not having leave benefits like employees, as long as they have workplace injury compensation, retirement benefits and the freedom to decide when they want to work.”
‘They deserve better’
The Hong Kong Institute of Human Resources Management said it supported the government’s initiative to strengthen legislative protection for gig workers, adding that the move recognised their vital and long-standing role in the economy.
It said the government should hold consultations with employers and employees before finalising any new classifications of workers and could make reference to Singapore’s definition of platform worker, which balanced flexibility with protection.
The institute said that basic rights such as insurance coverage and pension contributions should form the foundation of social and financial security for gig workers in Hong Kong.
“Gig workers have been around for many years, such as private tutors and freelance workers in different industries. They contribute to the economy and deserve better protection like others,” institute president Lawrence Hung Yu-yun said.
“With careful policy design, it is possible to balance worker protections with the flexibility that characterises gig work, helping Hong Kong remain competitive and attractive for talent and innovation.”
After meeting with the city’s two food delivery platforms on Friday, Undersecretary for Labour and Welfare Ho Kai-ming said in a social media post that the government was highly concerned about protection for platform workers.
“The government encourages platform companies to strengthen communication with platform workers, establish fair and reasonable working arrangements and service fee calculation mechanisms,” he said. “Platform companies are also urged to respond promptly and proactively to platform workers’ feedback and resolve differences through dialogue.”
Ho said the government had also asked the companies to take “serious action” against illegal workers, including implementing more stringent identity checks. He noted that a survey by the authorities found local platform workers were concerned most about compensation in the event of work accidents.
“The government will continue to focus discussions on this issue in collaboration with platform companies and other stakeholders through the liaison group with an aim to introduce a proposal for further enhancing the rights and benefits of platform workers within this year,” he said.
In a reply to the Post, the Labour Department said it had received 83 employee compensation claims involving digital platform workers between January 2021 and last month.
Among the cases, 30 were concluded with compensation paid and 48 were withdrawn or not pursued by the employees for various reasons. The department was following up on the remaining five cases.
Foodpanda Hong Kong said it would continue to be open to listening to feedback from different stakeholders, as well as maintain close communication to exchange ideas on the development of the industry.
Keeta said it was committed to engaging with policymakers and stakeholders while operating strictly in accordance with Hong Kong’s laws and regulations.
The priorities for delivery rider Mark Chan regarding any future regulation of the gig economy are simple: job security and personal safety.
“My wish is simple: to work daily and ensure my wife doesn’t have to worry about me. Ultimately, I want to be able to grow and be present with my kids for years to come,” he said. - SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
