Rideshare driver Alin Posmag says his earnings have sunk to their lowest point yet.
It’s been nearly five months since Ontario introduced new rules aimed at ensuring fair pay for app-based gig workers. Posmag — who has driven for nearly two years for companies including Uber, Lyft and Hopp — says he’s being offered fewer trips and earning less for the ones he gets.
Based on his average weekly trips, he estimates that he’s making about 35 per cent of what he made in the previous year, despite the “same willingness to work nonstop,” he said.
The former engineer, who lives in Burlington and left his job because of stress, turned to rideshare driving to pay his bills. He says he now often works a staggering number of hours a week, even hitting a record of 139 hours on one occasion. But due to a surplus of drivers and long stretches spent waiting for trips, he said he barely makes minimum wage once gas and car maintenance are factored in. And the new rules aren’t helping him.
“The law that was implemented is very superficial and fundamentally wrong,” Posmag said. “It feels like manipulation at every level.”
Spurred by a pandemic surge in delivery app usage, the rideshare and food courier workforce has skyrocketed — made up largely of newcomers and precarious workers with few other job options — prompting legislative changes aimed at setting employment standards for gig workers on platforms such as Uber, Lyft, DoorDash and SkipTheDishes.
On July 1, the province’s Digital Platform Workers’ Rights Act took effect, promising minimum wage standards for these gig workers. Ontario’s legislation followed similar measures introduced in B.C. in 2024, with drivers there also reporting that their pay hasn’t improved.
Labour experts, drivers and advocates argue that the reforms fall short of ensuring fair wages and real protections for workers.
The rules in Ontario guarantee a minimum wage of $17.20 an hour for “engaged time” — the hours drivers spend actively completing trips or deliveries — but ignore the time spent waiting for work, which many drivers say now makes up a large portion of their day.
Experts warn that unless all hours worked are covered, gig workers will continue to bear the financial burden while companies avoid paying for much of their labour.
A city hall staff report analyzing drivers’ wages last year found that after expenses such as insurance, fuel, repairs and financing, app-based drivers made $5.97 an hour when accounting for all time spent on the app — a figure Uber disputes.
Labour relations lawyer Ryan White of Cavalluzzo LLP said it’s not surprising that the legislation is doing little to improve workers’ wages, calling it “little more than a PR move.”
Paying workers only for active time downloads the costs of waiting for orders and all “other costs associated with employment onto the backs of the workers — those who can afford the least,” he added.
“If a firefighter were only being paid when fighting fires we understand it would be unfair, and yet we allow this model in gig work.”
In an emailed statement, the provincial Labour Ministry said “Ontario is proud to be the first jurisdiction in Canada to introduce enforceable rights” for digital platform workers, but it did not address concerns about increasing unpaid time waiting for work.
A Star investigation last year detailed how Uber Eats delivery workers can spend hours a day chasing work around the city with no guarantee they’ll be matched with a job.
In an email, Uber Canada spokesperson Keerthana Rang said the company is “fully compliant” with the Act. “For each pay period, we compare (a worker’s) earnings (excluding tips) to the guaranteed minimum amount they’d earn for their active time. If they earned less than the guaranteed minimum, we top up their pay,” Rang said.
“As independent workers, drivers and delivery people manage their own expenses and may ‘use’ those expenses with more than one platform.”
SkipTheDishes said the company is “committed to working alongside policymakers, couriers and industry partners to ensure these changes preserve the flexibility and independence of platform work.”
Lyft and DoorDash did not respond to requests for comment.
Labour advocates have long argued that the crux of the problem is that app companies for years have gotten around paying drivers minimum wage by misclassifying gig workers as independent contractors, excluding workers from the full set of rights and benefits they would otherwise be entitled to as employees.
Muhammad Nawaz, 48, who has worked for ride-share and food delivery apps since 2019, says getting trips these days — even while running several platforms at once — has become increasingly difficult because of the high number of drivers waiting for work. He said he has stopped using most apps and now relies mainly on Uber and Lyft.
Even so, he said he spends several hours a week active on the apps waiting for work but isn’t paid for that time because it’s not recognized as “engaged.”
Like Posmag, Nawaz estimates he’s earning 20 to 30 per cent less than he did last year, despite spending up to 10 hours a day on the apps, an experience he describes as “excruciatingly painful.”
The new law, he said, is “completely useless for drivers.”
J.J. Fueser, a researcher with not-for-profit advocacy group RideFair TO, said per-kilometre pay minimums are ineffective when there’s an oversupply of drivers, reducing the number of total kilometres workers can earn.
“This is a wage suppression law,” Fueser said.
Nearly 700,000 Canadians worked for digital platform apps such as Uber, Lyft and DoorDash in 2024, up from 468,000 people in 2023, according to data from Statistics Canada.
In December, Toronto city staff recommended capping the number of rideshare licences in a bid to address the ride-hailing industry’s negative impacts on traffic, emissions and public transit. The city’s executive committee voted to send the proposal back to the drawing board.
When asked about the status of a future staff report, the city said in an email that while a specific date has not been set, staff “continue to … pursue operational improvements and data and public reporting advancements to meet the objectives of the vehicles-for-hire by-law.”
