Brazil has 1.5 million delivery and freelance drivers

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – At least 1.5 million delivery and freelance drivers worked without an employment contract in Brazil at the end of 2021. Of this total, 61.2% were app drivers and taxi drivers (946,000), 20.9% delivered goods via motorcycles (323,000), 14.4% acted as motorcycle taxi drivers (222,000), and the rest exercised the activity of delivery of goods by another means of transport (55,000).

The data were published by the Institute for Applied Economic Research (Ipea) in a study covering the period from 2016 to 2021.

The pandemic has affected the segment of app drivers and taxi drivers. At the end of 2021, there were 946,000 professionals without an employment contract. The figure is 16% below that recorded in Q3 2019 (1.12 million). However, the result of the fourth quarter of last year shows signs of recovery: the contingent is 21% higher than in the third quarter of 2020.

In a different scenario, the segment of deliverers of goods by motorcycle has advanced significantly, even during the pandemic. There were 25,000 delivery drivers at the beginning of 2016. That number reached 322,000 in Q4 of last year. In addition to this group, the category of other self-employed delivery workers also suffered no losses during the pandemic.

Of all the self-employed in the transportation sector, app drivers and taxi drivers have the highest average income: R$1,900. The figure refers to the end of 2021 and is below the average income received in the first quarter of 2016: R$2,700.

In the subgroup of motorcycle deliverers, there was an advance in average earnings reversed in 2020 during the pandemic.

The value of the average income of these workers has remained stable since then, at around R$1,500 per month. Ipea’s research also shows a reduction in the average income of motorcycle taxi drivers from R$1,000 to R$900 from 2016 to 2021. It is the only subgroup in the survey with average incomes below the minimum wage.

The study followed the profile of self-employed transportation workers. Most are black and brown men under the age of 50. The most significant number of motorcycle delivery, app, and taxi drivers is in the Southeast. Mototaxi drivers, on the other hand, are concentrated in the Northeast and the North.

With information from Poder360