Korea’s Deliverymen Work Backbreaking 12 Hour Days

After articles about apartment complexes making things difficult for deliverymen by restricting their ability to drive into the complex, and making them lug heavy packages from outside the gate, another article sheds light onto their difficult working conditions. Netizens express sympathy for deliverymen, and gratitude for their service.

Video from KBS:

“Working 12 Hour Days to Make Ends Meet”…Exhausted Deliverymen

Anchor

Nowadays, the busiest people are deliverymen.

While the number of people who make overseas direct purchases at shopping males is increasing and the quantity of deliveries rapidly increases every month, deliverymen’s pockets aren’t growing any deeper.

Reporter Lee Kyung-jin has more.

Reporter

Deliveryman Choi Pil-sun works various jobs from 6:00 AM – 3:30 PM, after which he starts making deliveries.

To cut down on his delivery time, he loads up and carries fifteen five kilogram boxes of fruit at once.

Deliveryman: “I’ll put the remaining six boxes here. Have a nice day~”

Skipping lunch is common to deliver all one hundred and fifty boxes of fruit a day.

Interview, Deliveryman Choi Pil-sun: “I usually don’t eat [lunch]. They’re cutting down on the delivery time, and more people are calling in, asking “When are you going to make the delivery?”

Over the past ten years, the quantity of deliveries has more than quadrupled.

However, over the same period of time, the unit delivery cost for a box has fallen by more than 30%, and last year, businesses cut off rates for the boxes at 2,200 won a piece.

Delivery companies competitively decreased their prices to win contracts from their main distribution company clients, leading delivery fees to stay around 700 won per package.

Because of this, deliverymen regularly work twelve hours a day, and even if they deliver one hundred fifty packages, they only receive about 1,500,000 a month after deducting the installments paid on their delivery trucks, the cost of gas, and other expenses.

Korea has eighteen delivery companies.

If companies like Nonghyup and Lotte enter the delivery service market and book at low prices, working conditions for deliverymen may worsen.

Comments from Naver:

scs1****

Thank you and sorry.

cafe****

You deliverymen always work so hard. Deliverymen! Hope you have a great New Year’s and cheer up!!”

oks1****

Cheer up, deliverymen! I’m always grateful for your services.

ping****

Thanks to the deliverymen for all your hard work~~^^

wand****

Fighting, deliverymen!

dump****

Before saying that they’re deliverymen because they didn’t study, first, you should see that people are divided into those that work with their brains, and manual workers who aren’t treated well. So if they ask for conditions to be improved, the answer they receive is that they slacked off so much in school, so this is the result, and that if they have issues with it, they should study hard to succeed. There are a lot of people who have reasons for becoming deliverymen– after they retired, they needed money for their family’s hospital expenses, or their business failed, not because they were slacking off in school. These are lives they have been given, but yet they struggle and making fun of their hard work is not right. It’s great to study hard, yet it’s fucking worthless to work hard as a manual labor? These narrow-minded losers.

mp15****

Society is not right in its mind. No matter what job you do, shouldn’t they let you make enough to survive if you work hard?

snoo****

The more developed a country is, the more millions of won you can make through manual labor…the biggest problem for our country moving forward…is that these kinds of young people will all look for office jobs, and make it even more difficult to find a job.

fann****

In all good conscience, let’s just buy the water ourselves…I live somewhere where there’s no elevator, so I never order mineral water.

jinb****

I always feel happy when I see a delivery coming. It’s all thanks to the deliverymen. I’m always thankful for what you do. Buck up~~^^

vltl****

Compared to how much the deliverymen work, the amount of [pay] they get is very little.

zpcn****

I’m a driver working for CJ..In the past, when they had an article about deliverymen, there were a lot of negative comments about deliverymen. But now, most people are expressing their gratitude for deliverymen, so I’m really glad to see that. There are annoying ones from both customers and deliverymen. But most of them are good people. I feel happy, and feel that it’s worthwhile looking at the comments. I will rest up on the holidays, and make more good deliveries, haha.

dhvm****

The majority of the delivery fees we pay all seem to go to the delivery companies…

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