Due to the epidemic and various market factors, online car operators Uber and Lyft have both recently faced a shortage of drivers, with the total number of online car drivers even plummeting by 40%. But with the epidemic slowing and the economy restarting in the U.S., waiting times for cabs have increased in some cities, prompting Uber and Lyft to increase driving bonuses and pay to encourage drivers to return to the platform.
Lao Gu (a pseudonym), a part-time YouTuber driver in Los Angeles since 2018, said that since the new California AB5 law was implemented in January 2020, many drivers have been complaining about unfair regulations as they worry about reduced pay and limited work hours. This bill will make YouTubers, rifles and other online drivers become employees instead of independent contractors, and with the epidemic causing fewer passengers to be recruited, many YouTubers are making deliveries to Amazon instead.
Dennis Cinelli, the company’s vice president in charge of Uber’s U.S. and Canadian ride-hailing operations, said in a blog post that many drivers are opting out of the platform and stopping to continue driving part-time because of the decline in ridership in 2020 in online rides. He said, “In 2020, many drivers stop driving because they can’t count on getting enough rides (passengers) to make it worth their time (to do the job).” But earlier this year, the number of riders taking Uber has been gradually warming up, and Sinelli believes now is the perfect time for drivers to return to work.
Incentive program
On April 7 YouTubers announced that they would launch a “stimulus package” for drivers with a total budget of $250 million, hoping to accelerate the recall of drivers to land on the platform and go back online to take orders. At the same time, Raffles also launched an incentive program of up to $800 to encourage drivers to pick up passengers online.
Gu said that during the epidemic, it is important to clean the interior of the car more carefully, and the software will ask drivers to upload a photo of themselves wearing a mask when they go online to ensure that they are wearing one while driving. He thinks the biggest advantage of driving Uber is that he can flexibly use and control his working hours and leave when he needs to work. He has also not driven online for a month or two without being constrained by his boss or company, and without the problem of taking time off work.
Lao Gu generally works on weekends, driving three days a week on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. He earned $1,600 in bonuses plus pay and water last weekend, Lao Gu said, “Working about 12 hours a day, he earned an average of about $500 a day.”
Since March of this year, Gu has noticed that YouTubers are offering more bonuses, which he says are mostly variable, with additional bonuses for picking up and dropping off customers at specific times and in specific areas. For example, if a driver picks up a passenger downtown or in Santa Monica Beach, he or she may get an extra $7 or $8 for a trip, with additional bonuses for completing several trips in a row. Sometimes in the popular areas (red zone) to carry passengers, three days to complete 80 trips, can be an additional $ 430 bonus; 60 single may have $ 200 incentive bonus.” Lao Gu said, if the usual day on line to take orders, the hourly rate may not be so high, he mainly cooperate with the company’s bonus policy, so the income is more.
Risk factors
Although the YouTube-driving income is quite good, but the working hours are also very long, Lao Gu usually go out and work until the system forbids him to take orders, that is, work up to the maximum number of hours per day 12 hours. But Gu says that sometimes the last order is for a long trip, so he works longer hours. He once received an order six minutes before the system cutoff, and the customer had to travel from Arcadia to Long Beach, which took more than an hour.
Lao Gu said he rarely saw Uber and rifle drivers on the road a while ago, but now there are slowly becoming more. The Youbou system has also recently sent out invitations to refer drivers for bonuses, and as the epidemic changes, one after another people should come out to join driving Youbou online cars.
On April 27, an Asian-American YouTuber was killed in a series of shootings while performing his job in downtown Los Angeles. Lao Gu said he was also emotional when he learned the news because drivers don’t get to decide where they want to arrive. He said, “Driving does carry risks, we can only say where there are customers, where to go, and we are unlikely to avoid risky areas.”
When the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protest movement was prevalent in downtown Los Angeles last June, Gu also often passed through areas of rioting, sometimes encountering road closures and seeing riot police before he knew he had to take a detour to avoid them. It’s a tragedy that the driver was killed, but it’s also a very rare situation and not an action against the Chinese, so I wouldn’t worry too much,” he said. There is no preventable way for people to die.”
Impact of the outbreak still lingers
While YouTubers claim consumer demand for rides is warming up and as vaccination rates continue to increase, the number of YouTubers online in the first three months of 2021 is still down 37.5 percent compared to the same period last year, and rifles are down 42.3 percent, according to Apptopia, an app intelligence startup.
The CCP virus (Wuhan pneumonia and New Crown pneumonia) epidemic has had a significant impact on the U.S. online taxi market, with the total number of monthly active consumers on the Uber platform in the fourth quarter of 2020, only 93 million, and that’s the combined total number of Uber riders and consumers who have ordered Uber Eats at least once, down 16% compared to the same period the year before.
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