Essential, yet Invisible: working conditions of Amazon delivery workers during COVID-19 and beyond

Despite the heightened attention granted by the coronavirus crisis, low-skilled essential labor remains largely invisible. A particularly under-researched and hard-to-access group of employees are Amazon delivery workers, whose workload and health risks increased significantly during national lockdowns. The present study surveyed their working conditions in Austria and identified the existing system of externalizing responsibility to subcontractors as key to facilitating the exploitation of workers' economic and migration-related pressures.