The gig economy is a rapidly expanding sector of the labour market globally and is characterised by short-term contracts and freelance assignments, offering workers payment based on the completion of tasks, or “gigs”, rather than a regular wage. This diverse range of work includes food delivery, ride sharing, errand running, design, and translation services. Here we focus on the heat stress and occupational health hazards faced by platform-based workers in Hyderabad, India, and how to address the associated challenges.
Over the past decade, Indian cities have witnessed the emergence of app-based service delivery networks, where aggregator firms employ individuals to provide specific services to customers through online platforms. In 2020-21, approximately 7.7 million predominantly young people were engaged in platform-based work in India. Delivery workers associated with food, grocery, and ride-hailing services have become a common sight in urban areas. These workers coordinate their labour through various online apps, spending long hours outdoors in extreme heat and often exposing themselves to dangerously high temperatures.
In 2022, India experienced the warmest summer in decades, with severe heatwaves experienced across large areas of the country and numerous locations recording temperatures between 45°C and 50°C (similarly, the summer of 2024 saw 37 cities across India recording temperatures above 45°C in May, Phalodi in Rajasthan being the hottest with a measurement of 50°C). Through in-depth interviews with cab drivers and delivery personnel in Hyderabad, southern India, their experiences with heat were captured that year, together with the implications of rising temperatures on their occupational health. These workers had to navigate the city in their vehicles and on their bikes, braving the oppressive heat, which was often further intensified by the urban heat island effect.
While taxi drivers spend most of their working time in a car and therefore benefit from some shelter from direct sun exposure, they experience prolonged intermittent periods of waiting in between fares, during which time they typically park their vehicles in open streets. In the absence of proper shade, such as that found in parking areas or tree-lined suburbs, their car heats up in the sun, leading to heat rashes, excessive sweating, and heat exhaustion for those drivers who frequently remain within their vehicles for extended durations. Moreover, the acute shortage of free public toilets and drinking water facilities in Hyderabad exacerbates the issue, as drivers experience dehydration, indigestion, and an increased risk of early-onset diabetes. Female drivers face additional challenges as a result, including urinary tract infections due to heat exposure, profuse sweating, and dehydration.
Workers engaged in app-based food or grocery delivery services primarily work on bikes, continuously exposing themselves for long periods of time to direct sunlight, dust, and traffic pollutants, which endangers their health and affects their eyes and lungs. They often carry heavy delivery bags on their backs, while also wearing helmets and brightly coloured uniforms made of heat-absorbing materials, all of which contribute to excessive sweating and exhaustion during the summer months. It is often challenging for these workers to store and carry water while traveling on bikes, exacerbating the risk of dehydration, and limited access to toilets and water taps further adds to their health risks. In some excessive cases, to meet daily delivery targets within a stipulated time, workers deliberately avoid stopping to drink water and rehydrate, even though this compromises their health. The combination of sun exposure and inadequate water intake can lead to these individuals suffering acute heat stress, presenting in symptoms such as giddiness, chronic dehydration, and, in extreme cases, heat strokes.
In response to the heat challenge, platform-based workers often reduce the number of hours they work, resulting in reduced income and thereby impacting their economic security. In this regard, while they typically work eight hours a day in other seasons, during the summer they can only exert themselves for around six hours. Unfortunately, most aggregator companies do not currently adjust the daily delivery targets for workers during the summer period to allow for the high temperature conditions or provide compensation, or healthcare services, to address heat-related occupational health issues.
As temperatures rise further due to climate change, in the absence of practical engineered physical solutions such as safe, affordable, personal cooling technologies, businesses operating gig economy models will need to address their policies on worker safety, protection and occupational health. These may include changes to the number and timing of rest and rehydration breaks and, where possible, adjustments to core hours of work to avoid the hottest time of day. Potentially this might include, when practical for the business need, working on assignments at night, which is typically cooler. Moreover, policies, practices and strategies will need to be tailored to the requirements of different category of gig, with targeted guidance for specific groups of workers. Indeed, gig workers and business owners should co-design strategies for dealing with heat stress which are tailored to their working environments, practices and operations. Further, gig economy businesses may have to compensate their workforces with higher pay or improved employment terms and conditions.
In a +50°C World there will be a pressing need for the development of a comprehensive set of measures to address the well-being of gig workers and ensure their livelihoods are protected in the face of changing environmental conditions. However, measures to improve worker welfare and productivity in high temperature periods will increase business cost and these are likely to be passed on to consumers via unpopular price rises. Ultimately, in the absence of voluntary action, regulations may have to be introduced specifying break durations, working duration, and other aspects of gig worker conditions to protect them from dangerously high temperatures and intense heatwaves.