Home delivery boom churns out 1 lakh jobs
Online shopping, grocery and food orders, which are growing at a fast clip, have emerged as a saviour for most through the pandemic as around one lakh people received jobs within the last year to focus on the delivery juggernaut.
Food delivery and e-commerce platforms and their partner logistic aggregators hired a large number of delivery personnel as the crisis turbocharged online orders. They also have given much-needed options to millions to buy products and services from home without being subjected to the highly contagious virus.
Many people are flocking to the delivery segment to are delivery staff or fulfil other positions, giving a relief to the country where millions of jobs were lost due to the pandemic-induced downturn available.
For instance, the blow of the pandemic was felt by Faysal Hossain Khan at the beginning of March last year as he was laid off from his job as a salesperson on your day the federal government announced lockdown to support the spread of the lethal pathogen.
A couple of days later, he saw a hiring advertisement for delivery personnel at Evaly in a Facebook post. He applied and got the work.
"It was like a war delivering groceries to the customer's home in the very beginning of the pandemic. But we achieved it," Khan told The Daily Star recently.
He now makes around 10-12 deliveries each day and receives Tk 70 for each delivery, that allows him to earn about Tk 800 daily.
The job opportunity for the youth on the digital market is expanding when one atlanta divorce attorneys 10 youths are unemployed.
A lot more than 2 crore youth aged 15- 29 are in the labour market. Of these, 21 lakh are unemployed, according to the Labour Force Survey 2016-17.
Digital shop operators say home delivery has boomed because the pandemic, providing e-commerce companies with the biggest prospect yet to expand their footprint.
Many jobless, especially students, used to earn a living by teaching at coaching centres and working as a private tutor prior to the pandemic. They lost the income-generating opportunities. This segment has entered the delivery industry to sustain.
"Since the start of the pandemic, the e-commerce sector has employed multiple lakh people," Zunaid Ahmed Palak, state minister for ICT, told The Daily Star.
Evaly has added a lot more than 700 fixed employees, which 45 per cent are women. A lot more than 5,000 new delivery personnel were also hired by the business to make the deliveries-from grocery to food to luxury items-in eight districts, including Dhaka.
"To deliver thousands of orders through the pandemic, we had to expand our workforce," said Arif R Hossain, chief marketing officer of Evaly.
"E-commerce is keeping the country's economy afloat in these difficult times and is employing many people."
According to industry insiders, most e-commerce and logistics companies have onboarded delivery makers as freelancers. For a single delivery, they receive Tk 20 to Tk 75.
In the meals delivery segment, one of the primary employers is Foodpanda, which witnessed 300 % year-on-year growth this past year, the highest because it was launched in Bangladesh in 2013.
In the last twelve months, a lot more than 10,000 new regular freelancers were added to Foodpanda, and its own grocery delivery arms Pandamart and Shop, taking the amount of regular freelancers, who will work across 64 districts, to a lot more than 20,000.
"We get Tk 38 for a delivery, and the payment increases when the length is longer," said a deliveryman of Foodpanda.
The deliveryman, an undergraduate student at a college in Dhaka, makes Tk 300-350 by working three hours each day.
A courier of Pathao said he earns Tk 5,000 in fixed earnings per month and makes around 30 deliveries each day. He also receives Tk 15 per delivery.
"Pathao is focused on providing income opportunities to the daily earners, whose livelihood is now at the best risk," said Fahim Ahmed, president of Pathao.
Pathao has created access to incomes for several thousand food, courier and parcel delivery agents over the entire year, he said.
"We onboarded practically 1,000 new persons through the pandemic."
Daraz, among the leading e-commerce platforms making a lot more than 60,000 deliveries a day, said it recruited 3,185 employees this past year and another 4,069 persons in 2021.
Paperfly, a logistics solution provider where Indian logistic behemoth Ecom Express owns the majority stake, employed more than 1,000 people during the pandemic after obtaining a vast number of orders, said Rahath Ahmed, co-founder and chief marketing officer of the company.
Chaldal, Bangladesh's leading online shopping platform for household goods, made 1,250 new jobs to take its number of employees to 2,100 as its orders grew over 150 % through the pandemic and it expanded to new cities.
"In addition to delivery persons, we employed people for warehouse, processing, quality control, and sorting," said Waseem Alim, CEO of Chaldal.
In the last year, a large number of courier and logistics companies sprung up to focus on online deliveries of e-commerce and f-commerce platform, creating occupations for thousands.
A delivery person of Provati Courier, which was founded last year and serves e-commerce and f-commerce platforms, said he received Tk 7,000 monthly and made 30-35 deliveries each day.
"An instant expansion of web business is occurring because of the coronavirus. Subsequently, a whole lot of new jobs are being created. The expansion will continue in the future, and more jobs will be produced as people will keep purchasing online even in the post-pandemic era," said Sayema Haque Bidisha, a professor at the economics department at the University of Dhaka.
Youth employment in Bangladesh is a lot more than 10 %, and the pandemic coronavirus has exacerbated it, she said.
"Creation of new jobs involving online business is essential, and the federal government should incentivise the sector to help it create more jobs."
She urged the government to bring the sector under a minimum regulation so that personnel in the gig economy could receive some protection and benefits.
