Current Status and Issues Concerning Employment Problems of Delivery Platform Workers

: A Focus on Remuneration Setting

Abstract

In recent years, platform workers’ precarious work situation has become an international problem for resolution. However, few studies have focused on platform workers in Japan. To fill that gap, this study identified food delivery workers’ remuneration setting and the challenges in it. Specifically, I clarified this by conducting a comparative analysis of firms whose delivery workers can generally predict the amount of their remuneration and firms whose delivery workers have difficulty doing so. The findings are as follows. First, Company B’s delivery workers received insufficient information from the firm regarding how pay would be determined, making it difficult for them to anticipate their remuneration amount. Consequently, the delivery workers were dissatisfied, and instability arose in the pay system. Second, unilateral adjustments in compensation were identified as a concern affecting both firms whose delivery workers can generally predict their remuneration amount and firms whose delivery workers have trouble doing so. Third, the quantitative results confirmed that delivery workers were dissatisfied because Company B did not fully inform its delivery team about how their remuneration would be determined. Furthermore, the study examined how the above remuneration setting problems affected the awareness and behavior of delivery workers.