The everyday lives of gig workers in Melbourne

The rise of the gig or platform economy, particularly app-based food delivery platforms, has transformed urban labor markets and the everyday geography of work. While gig work is often celebrated for its flexibility, little is known about how gig workers, especially food delivery riders, experience various forms of spatial and institutional exclusion in their efforts to access restaurants and customers’ premises. Within this context, drawing on interview data with 17 food delivery riders and participant-produced photographs, this paper explores the relationship between gig workers’ everyday lives and gig work in Melbourne. Our findings demonstrate that food delivery riders often experience various forms of exclusion while collecting food from restaurants and delivering it to customers. In addition, workers often have to rest on their bikes or public benches as they do not have any designated resting areas. Despite these challenges, our findings show that food delivery riders are able to use urban public spaces to create social networks, which is beneficial to their mental wellbeing.