‘Like slaves’: Lebanon’s delivery riders struggle as economic crisis bites

‘Like slaves’: Lebanon’s delivery riders struggle as economic crisis bites

His motorbike's tank almost empty, Ahmad had barely enough fuel to make one more delivery and get home for the night.

When the 24-year-old Syrian's phone pinged with a food order in a distant suburb of the Lebanese capital Beirut, his heart sank.

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Ahmad could ill afford to lose the work he picked up through local delivery app Toters - a precarious lifeline as Lebanon's economic meltdown destroys thousands of jobsand plunges three-quarters of the population into poverty.

"If I don't work, I don't eat," said Ahmad, who like other workers asked to be identified only by his first name.

Freelance delivery work from app-based platforms has boomed worldwide as COVID-19 lockdowns kept people at home, prompting demands for better pay and conditions from workers around the world, from New York and Amsterdam to Johannesburg.

In Lebanon, eight riders for leading delivery apps Toters and India's Zomato Ltd told the Thomson Reuters Foundation they were struggling to make ends meet with the additional strains of fuel rationing, petrol queues, power cuts, and price hikes.

Although gig work is promoted as flexible, the riders said they found their jobs stressful and exploitative as