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Comment by dwighttk | Hacker News Reader

delivery worker earnings increased from $11.72 per hour to $19.26 per hour after tips — a jump of 64 percent — since last year and total orders have gone up.

there are now 12,000 fewer delivery workers.

Sounds like a win for some workers. I would like to know the new total of workers though, is 12K fewer a lot? Seems like a lot.

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I'm skeptical about the numbers in this article, since there are a lot of nuances that it doesn't address. Many of the app-based delivery workers in the NYC metro area are migrants who lack legal work permits, so instead they rent someone else's identity/account on the apps. And counted among this drop in NYC delivery workers are several thousand who live in NYC but now work in Hoboken and Jersey City instead, since the wage law is NYC-specific.

I don't want to go back and pull the quotations, but there's a lot of "productivity has gone up! Deliveries per hour are up 1/3rd! this proves Uber and Doordash should have been doing this all along!" sentiment

contrasted with "It's nice to have a wage so I don't have to rush. I'm paid for my time not for deliveries. It's not fair, they seem to be giving hours to people who are more productive though!"

Also, with less workers, you would have lower geographic density, making last mile more expensive

Tipping is usually a percentage of the order. I wish the article said if the average order size changed instead of just number of orders.

The article says that average order price has stayed stable, including tips and fees.

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