A food delivery courier rides an e-bike in Toronto on Jan. 3, 2024.Chris Young/The Canadian Press
The number of Canadians using digital platforms such as Uber, Lyft and DoorDash to earn money sharply increased in 2024, according to new data from Statistics Canada. Almost 700,000 Canadians worked for digital platform apps last year, a 44-per-cent increase from 2023.
The national statistical agency defines digital platform employment as paid work carried out through websites or apps that connect workers with customers. The survey’s data do not include people who perform freelance work without the use of an online platform.
Roughly 2.3 per cent of the population from the ages of 15 to 69, or 675,000 Canadians, did paid work through a digital platform in 2024, compared with 468,000 people or 1.7 per cent of that same age group in 2023.
The most common work on a digital platform was the delivery of food and other goods – 266,000 people provided this service in 2024. Other digital platform work included providing transportation services (approximately 154,000 people) and creating content (39,000 people), including podcasts or YouTube videos. Canadians who rent out their homes on platforms such as Airbnb were also included in the overall statistic; there were 54,000 Canadians who rented out their homes for an income on websites and apps.
More racialized Canadians, particularly South Asian and Black, worked for digital apps compared with non-racialized Canadians. The data also showed that new immigrants were three times more likely to have performed paid work through these apps compared with those born in Canada.
Consumers’ growing reliance on apps for delivery services and the subsequent growth of low-wage gig workers has prompted legislative changes that aim to maintain a certain standard of employment for these workers. Most gig workers are not employees under existing labour laws – they are independent contractors who perform flexible work, and are not entitled to benefits such as sick leave and employment insurance.
Both Ontario and British Columbia have introduced legislation that guarantees a minimum wage for digital platform workers. In B.C., digital platform workers get paid $20.88 an hour, which is 120 per cent of the provincial minimum wage. Ontario’s minimum wage rules for app-based workers will take effect in July, 2025.
But labour advocates say that while minimum wage legislation for these workers are a step in the right direction, it does not go far enough in ensuring that apps are compensating workers adequately. App-based workers will only get paid minimum wage for “engaged time” – that means from the time they accept a job (such as a food order) on the app, to the time they complete the job (or deliver the food order). Many workers on apps such as Uber Eats and DoorDash spend hours in a day idle, in between jobs.
A City of Toronto report published in December, 2024, found that rideshare drivers in Toronto using digital platforms such as Uber and Lyft earn a median hourly wage of $5.97, when idle time and expenses are accounted for.
That report also found that the majority of rideshare drivers were young, racialized and spent more than 30 hours a week on ridesharing apps, meaning that these apps are the main source of their income.