Instacart's army of shoppers has exploded from 180,000 to 500,000 since the start of the pandemic — and some workers say it's making the job more difficult for everyone

• Instacart recruited 300,000 new gig workers in just a month — and has plans to hire another 250,000 — as demand for grocery delivery surges during the coronavirus pandemic, the company announced in April.
• Instacart's CEO told Bloomberg business has been so good that the company has already hit its sales goals through 2022.
• But veteran shoppers told Bloomberg a different story — that the influx of new workers and Instacart's push for efficiency has exacerbated existing issues around poor working conditions.
• Instacart workers have staged multiple protests since the pandemic began, demanding everything from hazard pay to more protective gear.
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Instacart is one of the lucky businesses that have boomed as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. CEO Apoorva Mehta told Bloomberg that the company has already delivered more groceries this year —$35 billion worth — than it hoped to by the end of 2022.

With most Americans stuck at home, many have turned to online delivery services like Instacart to get their groceries. To keep up with the demand, the company announced in late March that it would recruit an additional 300,000 contract delivery workers, or "shoppers," as it calls them. A month later, Instacart announced it had met that goal, bringing its total gig workforce to 500,000, and that it would aim for another 250,000, outdoing even Amazon's hiring spree.

While the influx of new shoppers has made it easier for Instacart to scale up its operations, veterans of the company say that working conditions have worsened as a result — issues that existed before but that pandemic has exacerbated.

Shoppers told Bloomberg that social distancing has been difficult to maintain in crowded grocery stores, that Instacart's training and safety practices have fallen behind as it has expanded its workforce, and that their status as contract workers deprives them of benefits like sick pay and health benefits.

A lot of the new hires "are people who are economically vulnerable and have been laid off," one shopper told Bloomberg, adding: "Now they're wandering aimlessly through grocery stores in the worst shopping conditions I've ever worked in."

In March, Instacart announced a coronavirus sick pay policy for workers affected by COVID-19, but some have claimed they've had difficulty getting compensated under it — a problem that's been reported by workers across a range of other gig economy companies such as Uber and Lyft.

In late March, Instacart shoppers went on strike over the working conditions, demanding the company provide them hazard pay and protective gear. While Instacart met some of their demands, saying it would provide hand sanitizer and use customers' last tip as the default on new orders, workers called its failure to address hazard pay and automatic tips "a sick joke," "simply... not enough," and "insulting for a number of reasons."

A month later, saying the company still hadn't taken adequate steps to support them during the pandemic, Instacart shoppers joined an unprecedented coalition of workers from Amazon, Whole Foods, and Target to protest working conditions.

Mehta told Bloomberg that safety is Instacart's top priority, and the company said it's spending tens of millions on safety measures, that shoppers prefer the flexibility of being a contractor, and that the walkouts didn't have a substantial impact on business.

While the the risk of becoming infected with COVID-19 has understandably increased tensions among workers, many were frustrated with Instacart long before the virus began to spread.

Workers told Bloomberg last year that the company pressured them into taking jobs not worth the payout, and Instacart was forced to abandon a new payment structure that workers said dramatically cut their wages and effectively paid customers' tips directly to the company.

The tech industry's reliance on contract workers has come under increasing scrutiny — and even more so during the pandemic — and lawmakers and regulators have begun to respond.

California's gig work law that went into effect this year made it more difficult for employers to classify workers as contractors. That's threatened the business model of companies like Instacart, with a county judge in San Diego ruling that the company had likely misclassified its workers. Uber and Lyft were sued by California earlier this week over the same issue, and the case could set a precedent for the industry.

"I don't think there's any argument Instacart can make with a straight face that these people are not employees," San Diego city attorney Mara Elliott told Bloomberg.

Instacart did not immediately respond to a request for comment on this story.