Newspaper/Flyer delivery jobs sounds like a ripoff for the effort involved

[mrperfect]

Just saw a lady with her two kids walking around and doing Newspaper deliveries. I usually avoid any clutter and see my flyers online but regardless took it from them. Apparently they are making 10cents a delivery and I couldnt help but wonder if this is even worth it?

It seemed more than a pain than anything else seeing them drag around the cart and walk door to door for God knows how many homes to even make a comfortable paycheque at the end of the day. Basically 3 people on their feet walking around for 10 cents sounds like a robbery?

How does this work? Doesnt it sound like a rip off?

[forthewinwin]

That's how it is for those sort of jobs. Here, it's minimum wage if you're of legal age to work, and if you're one of those kids doing a "Paper Route" they pay you $50/month. Per-hour pay comes to about $1.60/hour :lol:

Actually here even a lot of labour/warehouse jobs pay only $10.25 - 12/hour... it's sad.
Worst of all they most of the time don't even call you back.
I already have a job, but I still rant about the market.
How it works is you work a lot for little.

[guigz]

How many houses/flyers per hour can one hope to deliver?

At 300 houses/flyer per hour (12 seconds per house), it's 30$ an hour. In highly populated areas, this could conceivably be achieved.

You also get to walk around alot (health++) and enjoy the outdoors.

[sandman748]

is it ten cents per delivery or ten cents per flyer? I know my paper route started adding flyers into the big weekly, and they paid us .xx per flyer * the number of flyers in the paper * the number of houses delivered to. So if there were 5 flyers per delivery at 5 cents per flyer * 40 houses it would be $10 . 40 houses in an hour is doable (my route was only 4 blocks)

EDIT: this was ten years ago. Who knows what it is now.

[flyinggonzo]

How many houses/flyers per hour can one hope to deliver?

At 300 houses/flyer per hour (12 seconds per house), it's 30$ an hour. In highly populated areas, this could conceivably be achieved.

You also get to walk around alot (health++) and enjoy the outdoors.

I'd be shocked if you can make $30 an hour delivering papers (with only one person). A rate of 12 seconds per house does not seem possible without a support vehicle and I suspect high density routes like that are bid on separately (at an even lower rate).

In my mind these are minimum wage jobs. If I'm wrong, do tell, as I'll hire a few kids and start a flyer delivery business tomorrow.

[coriolis]

I did this as a kid. If I recall, it was $0.0x per flyer, and $0.1x for the newspaper, so Thursdays were the big days. The delivery isn't the hard part of the job, that was the easy part. Assembling the flyers was the worst part. Paper cuts, dirty hands from newspaper stains. Don't forget about the special samples that often comes about, the worst one was Downy liquid in small 30~ ml jars. Safe to say I usually delivered about half of those and kept the other half :D


I was paid weekly, and it was about $20-$40 per week, depending on season, more during the holidays and back-to-school season.


It wasn't a lot, but as a 12 year old, it helped me finance 2-3 bikes, which kept getting stolen at school :(

[guigz]

I'd be shocked if you can make $30 an hour delivering papers (with only one person). A rate of 12 seconds per house does not seem possible without a support vehicle and I suspect high density routes like that are bid on separately (at an even lower rate).

In my mind these are minimum wage jobs. If I'm wrong, do tell, as I'll hire a few kids and start a flyer delivery business tomorrow.

The OP mentioned 3 people. That gives 36 seconds per house per person. Each person makes 10$ per hour.

It is possible that higher density routes pay less, I have no expertise in this area.

Mailman is probably much better paid, all things considered.

[Rainne]

I think it's a job that teaches you work ethic more so than anything.

Obviously the lazy (and perhaps intelligent), see it as wasted effort for the amount of reward involved.

[kuhai2001]

When I was out of job, I flied for 4 cent each just to secure the job.

[jordanr19871]

How many houses/flyers per hour can one hope to deliver?

At 300 houses/flyer per hour (12 seconds per house), it's 30$ an hour. In highly populated areas, this could conceivably be achieved.

You also get to walk around alot (health++) and enjoy the outdoors.

+1
and in the summer grab a backpack and rollerblades and you're flying through the new developed areas where houses are 1.5 feet apart from eachother