The Seoul Metropolitan Government plans to pursue opening conveniently located convenience stores as rest stops for outdoor gig workers amid the ongoing heat wave. The city also plans to expand its network of mobile worker shelters and increase the supply of bottled water and heat-illness prevention items.
Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon visited the Hyu Seoul Mobile Worker Bukchang Shelter in Jung-gu on Friday morning to inspect its rest areas, air-conditioning facilities and available supplies, including cold water and cooling products. He then met with delivery riders and courier drivers taking a break and heard their accounts of working in extreme heat and their suggestions for improving the shelters.
"Delivery workers and other mobile workers are the ones who suffer most during difficult times like these," Oh said. "We will keep expanding the current 30 mobile worker shelters so that workers can stay healthy on the job."
One delivery rider who met with Oh that day said a colleague had recently collapsed from the heat while working. "After eight to ten hours on the job, I come home feeling dizzy and nauseous," the rider said. He added that while the shelters were a great help, opening nearby convenience stores as rest stops would make it easier and more comfortable to take breaks during the workday.
In response, Oh said the city had run a pilot program in 2024 opening convenience stores as mobile worker rest stops. "After that, the central government took the idea and said it would implement it, so we were unable to continue the project at the city level," he said. He added that connecting conveniently located convenience stores to the shelter network would offer significant value, and that the city would actively review ways to build on the pilot program, address its shortcomings and make it operational within the year.
The Hyu Seoul Mobile Worker Shelters are spaces set up to give mobile workers — who often have nowhere to rest in extreme heat or cold — a place to take a short break. The city operates 30 such shelters across Seoul in partnership with its 25 autonomous districts.
The Bukchang Shelter, which opened in June 2017, covers 333 square meters and is primarily used by delivery platform couriers and quick-service riders. It operates on weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. and also opens on weekends in July and August during the peak heat season. This year, 12,088 people had used the shelter through the end of last month.
A shelter official said about 50 mobile workers typically stop by each day to drink water and rest. "On days like these, with the heat wave continuing, around 70 people are using it daily," the official said.
Oh said that amid the relentless heat, shelters were "not simply amenities but safety facilities that protect the health and lives of mobile workers." He added that the city would move quickly to establish a Seoul-style field response system for heat waves, drawing on overseas examples of "cool van" services that dispatch air-conditioned vehicles and medical personnel directly to workers in the field.
ikson@heraldcorp.com
