Supporting yourself with a side hustle in Finland-Wolt

Wolt is an online food delivery service that was established in 2014 but they launched their activities in summer 2015 in Helsinki Finland with 10 restaurants at the start. Within the next seven years, Wolt has expanded their operations into 23 countries and countless cities.

The company business model is on the same line as Uber, Airbnb, and the like. The company doesn’t take any liabilities but only provides the platform for gig workers to make money. This type of gig work is good for most students and others that have a regular job and want to have an extra income.

But the situation is different in Finland as getting a professional job is a pain in the neck in Finland. Due to lack of jobs many graduate, students, and professional ends up doing this gig job called wolt full-time. When I say there is no job in Finland I don’t mean any job at all but what I really mean is that the job available are only for Finnish people as the first priority. I have another blog that explains the experience and situation surrounding the job search in Finland. I have friends who are master’s holder that ends up doing this gig work. It’s not bad in itself as it requires hard work and you get the money when you put in the effort. However, it also comes with sacrifices.

This wolt gig culture is more flexible enabling students and sometimes retired men to do it in their leisure time. From my observation, we have more than 80% of people doing this job as people of foreign origin with a regular commitment to doing it full time. The rest of the 20% are the Finn that do it at ease when they wanted.

The support team comprises mostly the Finnish people that help the courier with necessary assistance when needed. It is too more than 3 years before I started seeing people of foreign origin in the support team. Don’t ask me why that is but when you come to Finland the country will reveal itself to you. My poi’s that time will I tell.

Wolt side gig is an affordable way to survive in Finland as a student but when you look at job security there is none for people doing the work. Courier partners as they called it earn a reasonable amount of money depending on the effort you put into it. The full-time gig worker makes around 2500-3500€ within 2weeks while the occasional worker like me with other side hustle and school activities to cater for makes around 1500€-2000€ within 2weeks respectively depending on the effort put into it. When I say the work efforts, I really mean the time. The regular worker spends around 10-13 hours daily waiting for tasks and making the delivery. You can see that doing 10 hours daily will give you very limited time to carter for any other things alongside and even to have time for your life and love once’s.

“This side hustle only provide flexible working options not job security “

You might be thinking that this is a big amount on money, and you want to do the same. Let me share the reality of this job with you. Let’s take a courier partner named the landlord ( that is his street name and I will tell you more about him in another article) let’s say he belongs to the first group of high earner making around 5000€ monthly which is more than some office workers and maybe a year salary for some people in developing countries. The landlord will need to pay a tax of maybe 25% from the money made which is 1250€ he is left with 3750€. He will also pay his retirement which is calculated based on his earnings and with this earning you should be expected to pay around 600€ monthly or even more. Now he is left with 3150€. Let consider landlord expenses from car insurance 120€, fuel 400€, car maintenance 500€ -1200€ depending on the problem with the car or the model of the card, car loan if there is any 250€, food 400€, house rent 750€ and lastly savings 0€. Don’t forget that landlord works from Monday to Sunday no break and works 10-13hours.  Oh I forgot to tell you that landlord is a foreign national that need to send money home to family and friends and this demand varies depending on the problems waiting for him in the village. Am sorry but this is the main character we forget to mention grandma ( the packing tickets woman) one packing ticket costs between 50€-60€ per packing and some of us have taken like 3 tickets a day due to wrong packing to pick food.

Let me just enlighten you more about the ticket and the daily money. For you to make 2500-3000 euro within 2 weeks you need to make at least regular 250€ daily or a little bit less but nothing below 200€. Some days are not very good and you can spend the whole day making 100€ or Even less. People making that money need to be on the run every minute and I am high alert. Let’s get into the details, each task you carry gives you 4€ during weekdays and 4.50€ at weekends in my city and in bigger cities the price is different. You get 4.50€ on weekdays and 5€ on weekends. I don’t really why there is such inequality in the price as we all use cars, buy the same 2€ per litter fuel and repair cars same price and pay insurance with the same price. Anyway, that is not the topic of discussion now. For you to make 200€ per day during the weekdays you need to pick 50 tasks. Some tasks could pay you more depending on the distance calculation attract some extra money added. And you could be unlucky for days and even weeks to get this distance. While some days you can be lucky.

Let’s now talk about grandma a little, they are old people who give tickets and it is clear that they hate the delivery guys working with wolt and they become an element of target. They intentionally give tickets at will. They even went ahead to make some places with no packing zone. I don’t mean all of them are bad but most of them are. But they are not the only ones to be blamed. Our courier partners also don’t follow rules most time because they are on target, and this costs them money. When you get a ticket it cost 60€ and when you get 3 tickets per day that means you have lost 180€ from your daily earning of 200€ leaving you with 20€ for the whole day work. Don’t forget you need to eat and the remaining 20€ can’t cover a 3 times meal for you a day as just pizza cost 10€ or more. And you need to buy fuel which could be around 20€-30€ per day. So for me business-wise it’s doesn’t make any business sense. I am not saying you will get 3 tickets daily but it is a possibility.

What I am saying is that the more you make the less you have. Don’t also forget that this high-level worker doesn’t make the same amount monthly, either due to health, car problems, or low demand of orders. The issue is that the aforementioned point about paying retirement is not done about many of the couriers because once you register for that pension plan you have to pay it. Whether you work or not you are obligated to pay.

So, from all these calculations individual is left with very small savings if only there is. However, the people in full-time employment have that social security that pays the pension, holidays, and sick leave. Oh, don’t forget that if you don’t pay pension contributions as a gig worker you are not entitled to government support in Finland. Also, even when you pay the support you get will be calculated based on your contribution payment. As a gig worker, you have the flexibility to work when you want but remember there is no holiday payment for you.

Your can also get the same side gig from foodora as well. I will also write about the diffeent in the business model and flexibility soon.