6. Riders on the Storm: Amplified Precarity During the Pandemic

This chapter delves into the intensified precarity of Chinese food-delivery drivers during the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on the roles of algorithmic management and state policies. It explores the health risks drivers faced, including increased exposure to the virus and harsh working conditions, such as delivering groceries in severe weather. The chapter also examines the livelihood crisis, highlighting how drivers' income was severely impacted, and discusses the inflamed discrimination they encountered, including being labeled 'virus carriers' and facing physical attacks. The findings reveal how the pandemic exacerbated job insecurity, income instability, and racial discrimination, providing new empirical evidence on the role of management and the state in generating precarity. The chapter concludes by emphasizing the urgent need to regulate and standardize non-standard platform employment to protect labour rights in the post-pandemic era.