Delivery Workers, COVID-19, and Job Burnout

Abstract

In the age of COVID-19, couriers are one of the jobs that have been categorised as essential; while other jobs have changed to working from home if they can, couriers and other essential workers still need to carry out their tasks as usual in order to maintain a semblance of normalcy for others. Yet, problems previously experienced by couriers have instead been made worse by COVID-19, such as the prevalence of overwork becoming more common as the demand of online shopping increases. As a result, job burnout has become more pronounced in this new norm. In view of this, exploratory research was conducted by reviewing various literature surrounding job burnout and courier work in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings are then analysed using Ishikawa's fishbone diagram, which are then categorised into four interlinked themes of environmental, psychological, physical, and financial factors. Afterwards, a discussion was made to further detail the extent of these factors towards job burnout, with recommendations being made to potentially remedy these factors.