Afghan miners dig inside a tunnel of a gold mine in the mountains of Yaftal Sufla district in Badakhshan province.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Tearing off a piece of mouldy flatbread, Homayon gulped tea in a brief reprieve from the din of the machines he and a dozen other men were using to dig for gold on a mountainside in northeastern Afghanistan.

The 30-year-old found little work as a mechanic in nearby Faizabad city, so he banded with other unemployed men to try their luck carving out a living in the rocky mountains that dominate Badakhshan province.

“Five, six of us were jobless, we came here to see if we can find anything,” Homayon said, as the handful of men finished their break and returned to work at the small-scale mine they had set up.

Their efforts digging four tunnels have borne little fruit, even as they pour money into fuel, tools and labour.

Other mines in the area had proved productive, Homayon said, so they kept digging — the promise of a windfall outweighing the risks of debt.

‘Significant losses’

The losses can be significant, warned fellow miner Qadir Khan. “There are people who went into debt and were not able to find anything from these kinds of tunnels,” he said.

“They lost two to three hundred thousand Afghanis (roughly $2,800-$4,200), and there was nothing to do but try to find different work, make money, and come back to pay their debts.”

Despite being 74 years old, Mr. Khan says he has no choice but to keep working, as he hunches over a pile of rocks to break them into smaller pieces.

The Afghan Taliban’s takeover of the country in 2021 may have seen an end to two decades of war with the U.S. and its allies, but, according to a World Bank report, half the population is still living in poverty.

Labourer Sharif, 60, said he used to keep livestock but has been mining for the last year. Two of his sons had left for Iran to find work. “We are still farming, but it is not the way it used to be,” he said, complaining of a lack of water — another shortage drought-hit Afghanistan has faced in recent years.

The rocks Sharif helps mine are broken up and hoisted down the steep mountainside, then pulverised into a flour-like substance. On the banks of the Kokcha River, which snakes between snow-capped peaks, men use makeshift buckets to scoop water over piles of the powder. It is then sifted as it runs down a sluice covered by material pulled from car interiors.

The proceeds of the first wash are used to fund the equipment and labour and to keep the mine going. The gains from the second and third washes are shared between those bankrolling the operation.

Even if the miners can collect significant amounts of gold, a fifth of proceeds will go to the Taliban authorities.

High stakes

Delving deep into the Afghan mountains, the miners risk not just debt, but death as well. Mine collapses are common in Afghanistan, which is rich with precious minerals like the lapis lazuli Badakhshan is famous for.

The miners on the Kokcha said they had lost friends recently, and local media reported earlier this month that a gold miner died when part of a mine collapsed in neighbouring Takhar province.

In 2019, at least 30 people were killed when a gold mine collapsed in Badakhshan.

Despite the risks, the men continue digging.

“So far we have not found much of anything,” said Homayon. “But we have hope, we trust in God.”

Companies are trimming their budgets for merit raises next year, a sign of belt-tightening that could surprise some employees who had enjoyed two straight years of increases.   

US employers surveyed by Aon Plc, which compiles compensation data on more than 5,500 employers, said merit raises will average about 3.7% across all industries next year, down from 3.9% this year, as companies rein in labor budgets and inflation eases from last year’s highs. A separate survey from workplace consultant Mercer found a similar trend, with merit-based salaries seen rising 3.5% next year, down from 3.9% in 2023.

“People are not going to spend what they spent last year,” said Tim Brown, a partner at Aon. “Also, inflation has come down since last year. So there’s more pressure on salaries.”   

Workforce leaders echoed the findings. Bob Toohey, chief human resources officer at Allstate Insurance Co., said compensation budgets in the US “will be lower than last year – all company budgets will be lower than last year.”  

The pay gains projected by Aon and Mercer are still well above pre-pandemic levels, when raises were stuck around 3% annually. That’s due to the continued resilience of the labor market and historically low unemployment, Mercer Senior Principal Lauren Mason said. Initial jobless claims in the week ending Sept. 16 fell within striking distance of the lowest level in more than five decades, according to Labor Department data. US inflation, which topped 9% last summer, is less than half that now. Mason said that further reductions in compensation budgets are possible next year as companies adapt to the changing economic landscape. 

Workers in technology have been particularly hard hit, with only 5% of firms in the industry saying they’re now hiring aggressively, according to Aon. That’s down from 22% last year. Tech firms usually top other areas when it comes to projected salary increases, but in the wake of layoffs and cost-cutting drives they’re due to deliver merit raises of just 3.3% next year, Mercer found – below sectors such as energy and consumer goods.

A separate survey from technology job site Hired found that tech salaries are now at a five-year low, adjusted for inflation. But jobs that require specialized skills, like machine learning engineers and data scientists, are still in high demand. 

Salary increases tied to promotions will also decelerate next year, Mercer found, for the simple reason that companies plan to promote fewer people. During the hiring boom of 2021 and 2022, many companies handed out raises and promotions to white-collar workers, even in the middle of the year, to hold onto their best people. Seven out of ten companies spent more than they had planned on pay adjustments during that period, a survey from workplace consultant Willis Towers Watson (WTW) found.   

A separate report from WTW found that organizations are budgeting for overall salary increases of about 4% next year, down from the 4.4% boost they paid out this year. While raises are not as large as they were in recent years, companies are getting more generous with perks and benefits such as flexible-work schedules and paid parental leave, according to a recent survey from staffing firm Robert Half Inc. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Making deliveries on time. Illustration of a food delivery worker riding a vehicle to drop a delivery
| Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto

A survey report on food delivery partners by the National Council of Applied Economic Research validates several common beliefs, such as workers being young graduates who work extended hours for better pay and independence. However, the study also reveals new insights: a sizable portion of them are sole breadwinners in their families and a notable share experienced a drop in income compared to their previous jobs. The findings further indicate a decline in their real income over time even as the share of income that they spent on fuel has risen, resulting in a double whammy

1. A majority of them agreed that deliveries can be increased if they worked harder, while a similar share also said that this was not in their control due to traffic and restaurant delays
2. A significant share of them spent a sizeable amount buying new phones and vehicles for the job

Profile of a food delivery partner

An overview of the average food delivery worker, encompassing their background and skill sets, according to the survey

• The typical food delivery worker is a 29-year-old male
• Nearly one-fourth (23.8%) of these workers are in their first job, and of this group, 88% are students
• Food delivery workers lack social security protection. Only 61.9% of delivery workers receive rations, 12.2% possess an Ayushman Bharat card, 7.1% are registered on the e-Shram portal, and 4% are enrolled in the Atal Pension Yojana
• These workers are considered informal labour, lacking employer-provided social welfare and job security, although some may have accident insurance
• Workers on long shifts average 10.8 hours, while those on short shifts work about 5.2 hours
• A third of the workers have college degrees, and 93% have at least completed 10th standard
• 43.7% of workers are the sole wage earners, and 68.9% are non-migrants who work in their hometowns
• On average, workers stay in their food delivery roles for about 14.1 months, though a third indicate that they have no plans to leave
• In terms of tenure, 28.1% have been working in such platforms for less than a year and 25.7% for 1-2 years, making them pandemic-era hires. Meanwhile, 24.7% started before the pandemic, having worked for over two years
• Food delivery workers work 27.8% more hours than the average urban young male and earn 59.6% more. However, after accounting for fuel expenses, this income advantage narrows to 5%

Incentives

Chart 1 | A look at the reasons given by workers for joining the food delivery platforms (% respondents)

Charts appear incomplete? Click to remove AMP mode

Basis of entry

Chart 2 | How did workers enter the food delivery platform? (% respondents)

Job requirements

To work for a food delivery service, a worker is required to own a two-wheeler and know how to use it, have a smartphone, and buy a kit that includes a T-shirt and bags

Old vs new job

Chart 3 | The chart contrasts different facets of employment in food delivery platforms with the prior jobs of those who work long shifts in food delivery

Income and expenditure

Examining the change in a food delivery worker’s income levels due to this new job

Chart 4 | % of long-shift workers who said their real income (new income minus previous job’s monthly income) increased/decreased/remained same

Chart 5 | Year-wise nominal and real monthly income of long-shift food delivery workers (in ₹ thousand)

Chart 6 | Year-wise share of fuel costs for long-shift food delivery workers as a share of their income

Chart 7 | Average monthly earnings, fuel costs, and monthly spending (excluding fuel) for long-shift platform workers

Perceptions about delivery

The charts show the share of respondents who said the following:

Chart 8 | The number of deliveries can be increased if a worker tries harder

Chart 9 | The number of deliveries a worker makes is not in their control

Chart 10 | The worker can improve their rating if they are polite to their customers

Chart 11 | The worker has to spend a lot of time waiting at a restaurant for an order

Methodology

NCAER conducted a phone survey involving 924 food delivery workers from a specific platform. The survey spanned 28 cities, covering Tier 1, 2, and 3 cities across all regions of India—North, South, East, and West. It included both active and inactive or former workers, who had employment durations ranging from less than a year to over two years, working either full-time or part-time.

This report, the first output of a three-part research programme undertaken by NCAER extensively explores the socio-economic implications of workers engaged in the food delivery platform industry, shedding light on their employment patterns, incomes, and work environments. Parts two and three of the research programme reports, to be released subsequently, will evaluate the socio-economic impact of food delivery platforms on restaurants, and their systemic impact on India’s economy and labour markets.

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A multi-millionaire property developer from Australia has sparked outrage after saying that he wants unemployment to rise in his country because workers have become ”too arrogant”. Tim Gurner, CEO of Australian real estate company Gurner Group said that the Covid pandemic had changed employees’ work ethic and they need to be put in their place through unemployment, Independent reported. 

”I think the problem that we’ve had is that people decided they didn’t really want to work so much anymore through COVID. They have been paid a lot to do not too much in the last few years, and we need to see that change” he told the Australian Financial Review Property Summit in Sydney.

According to him, the key to curbing “arrogance” in the labour market is higher unemployment.

”We need to see unemployment rise. Unemployment has to jump 40, to 50 percent in my view. We need to see the pain in the economy. We need to remind people that they work for the employer, not the other way around,” he added.

”There’s been a systematic change where employees feel the employer is extremely lucky to have them, as opposed to the other way around. We’ve got to kill that attitude and that has to come through hurting the economy,” he further said. 

The unemployment rate in Australia is 3.6 per cent, or roughly 500,000 people, meaning an estimated 250,000 workers would lose their jobs in a 50 per cent increase.

A video of his controversial comments has gone viral on social media, sparking instant backlash. ”Why doesn’t he do us a favour and volunteer his job as the first step to the 50%,” one user wrote. Another said, ”Everything a business leader should not say. Kind of unbelievable.”

His comments also drew a fierce reaction from the US democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

”Reminder that major CEOs have skyrocketed their own pay so much that the ratio of CEO-to-worker pay is now at some of the highest levels *ever* recorded,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on X.

After receiving backlash for his statements, he said in a LinkedIn post on Thursday that he was “wrong” to say what he did. He admitted that his comments were ”deeply insensitive”.

“At the AFR Property Summit this week I made some remarks about unemployment and productivity in Australia that I deeply regret and were wrong. There are clearly important conversations to have in this environment of high inflation, pricing pressures on housing and rentals due to a lack of supply, and other cost-of-living issues. My comments were deeply insensitive to employees, tradies and families across Australia who are affected by these cost-of-living pressures and job losses. 

”I want to be clear: I do appreciate that when someone loses their job it has a profound impact on them and their families and I sincerely regret that my words did not convey empathy for those in that situation,” Mr Gurner wrote.

Mr Gurner, who has been featured in Forbes Australia, and is one of Australia’s richest men, has a net worth of $912 million as per The Australian Financial Review’s estimates.