Twin Cities delivery workers dash around this holiday as their jobs continue to evolve

As the holiday season reaches its crescendo, the army of delivery workers in the Twin Cities, which ballooned in the pandemic, has matured and evolved.

Some have cut their hours in the last year, but they still use the side work as a way to make extra money. Others saw more potential, launched full-time careers and plan to buy their own large delivery vehicles.

Delivery has grown so much that at many stores and restaurants across the metro, it's hard not to run into a personal shopper or delivery person, said Cora Hagemann, a shopper for grocery delivery company Shipt.

"People don't realize that there are so many people shopping for other people," said Hagemann, who has completed more than 3,000 orders.

Still, as consumers have returned to shopping in stores, this holiday season isn't quite as busy for her Shipt orders as it was during the pandemic, Hagemann said.

Hagemann, 38, became a Shipt shopper as a side hustle in 2019, but she really started picking up hours during the pandemic. She's still a high school English teacher and now works as a shopper on evenings and weekends almost exclusively for regular customers, some of whom have become good friends, she said.

On a recent Friday night, she was scouring the Maple Grove Target for groceries and holiday gifts for one of her customers. Hagemann called the customer directly on the phone to make sure she selected the right Barbie.

"I love shopping for them," Hagemann said. "It's the relationships that I've formed that have kept me going."

Neng Yang likes his new life on the go. After years working as a Twin Cities mechanic, Yang, 48, traded his wrench for a steering wheel this summer when he began to work as a same-day delivery driver for Priority Courier Experts.

"The fun part about doing delivery is you get to go everywhere, see a lot of places and different things," Yang said.

A family member who bought his own delivery van during the pandemic had recommended Yang try out a new career.

"I have been fixing cars for a long time. You are just in one place," Yang said, as he picked up a package from a Roseville business to deliver in Hopkins. "This lets me go to different places."

Yang used to drive his own van when he started at Priority, but he recently decided that it would be better to enter a lease-to-own arrangement for a bigger commercial cargo van so he could complete larger jobs. Yang primarily delivers packages from one business to another. He is also certified to make medical deliveries, which takes him to residences.

Grocery and other types of delivery orders grew during the pandemic. According to global consulting firm McKinsey & Co., customer preference for delivery orders of groceries increased by more than 50% during the pandemic. This year, about a quarter of consumers surveyed said they expected to do even more grocery delivery ordering.

According to Target-owned Shipt, there was a 252% increase in orders delivered in 2021 compared to 2019 before the pandemic. So far, this year there has been an 11% increase in Shipt orders compared to last year.

Delivery gig work was a financial lifeline in the pandemic to people whose workplaces were forced to close.

"The pandemic would have been a different experience without people doing these [delivery] jobs," said Alan Benson, an associate professor in the work and organizations group at the U of M's Carlson School of Management. "And also it would have been a very different experience for people who might have lost a lot of their in-person work and might not have had a natural alternative to segue into."

With the tapering of demand this year, companies like DoorDash have laid off workers. There have also been several companies, including Shipt, that have been sued over their classification of workers as independent contractors vs. employees. The Biden administration is proposing to limit companies' use of independent contractors.

"The big push has been toward, even if they are independent contractors, at least some of the protections that [employees] have traditionally enjoyed," Benson said.

The results of the lawsuits and government proposals that are being talked about now will have long-lasting impacts on the gig economy, he said.