Coupang to provide health care program to delivery drivers

E-commerce giant Coupang will introduce a health care program to a select group of its delivery drivers, the company said Tuesday, as the country’s online shopping boom has left delivery workers exposed to even more relentless work conditions.

Dubbed as “Coupang Care,” the program will see partakers set aside from their regular assignments and instead receive education on healthy diets, exercise and disease management from experts for four weeks.

The drivers, known as “Coupang Friends,” will receive full salary throughout the program, the company said.

Coupang said the latest initiative is part of its “commitment to creating an exemplary work environment for its employees.”

“Labor standards for delivery drivers are a very important social issue in Korea, and we remain committed to raising these standards as an industry leader,” one representative at the company said.

The company has tested the program from late April and has received positive responses from participants, it said. Over 80 percent of the workers who went through the four-week program said they experienced an improvement in their health and management ability and said they would recommend the program to their colleagues, Coupang said.

The move comes following calls on the company to improve the working conditions of delivery workers amid an unprecedented boom for e-commerce businesses. The death of a Coupang delivery driver last year was later confirmed as an industrial accident by the Korea Workers’ Compensation & Welfare Service under the Labor Ministry.

By Yim Hyun-su (hyunsu@heraldcorp.com)