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Original poster

Paper round is slave labour!

56 replies

CoffeTastesGreatToday · 21/05/2025 09:40

DS took on a paper round in January. I posted about it at the time because we couldn't tell if the pay was £13 per day or £13 per week.

Well... turns out it was actually £12.50 per WEEK!

So, he was getting up early, cycling off at 6:40am to get the papers at 7am, completing his round - which took him miles from home and up a main road. Then was getting home after 8:20am and having to rush off to school.

I did the round a few times with him. It was freezing and horrible in the rain, and the houses were so spaced out. Not many papers to deliver, to be fair. Just the route was a bit rubbish, and included a block of retirement flats which took a long time to walk around and navigate

We decided it wasn't worth giving up other activities in the evening just to get up early for a job that paid v little, so he handed in his notice! He then got really ill so I did the last week of his round for him to help out the post office and allow them time to find someone else during his notice period. Even in the car (it was cold! and hec, I wouldn't have chosen this job! So allowed myself some comfort!!), the route took me a good 45minutes each day!! I was truly counting down the days!!!

AIBU to think £12.50 a week is complete exploitation? That's £2.50 a day - for an hour cycling around delivering the papers, plus the getting up early, working in the cold, cycle time to get to the post office to collect the papers etc..

Who is actually working these hours for this money? DS really wants a job, but I just don't think the time and effort for £2.50 a day is worth it! My brother got paid more for his paper round in the 80s!!! What happened to pay rises in line with inflation etc...???

I'm late 40s. At the age of 12 I got a work from home job that paid £2.50 an hour. So same wage, but in the comfort of my home and this was over 30 years ago. And even then, I thought it was a poor rate of pay, but accepted it (because I wasn't old enough to have got a job legitimately, so was in no place to complain!!)

I am genuinely gobsmacked that a legit, well established and national company, the post office, is exploiting kids in this way!

OP posts:
OneAmusedShark · 21/05/2025 10:05

I got paid £1 a round for daily round that took about 2 hours to do. That was in 1995.

I used to get paid every two weeks with a £1 bonus if there were no complaints about getting the wrong paper, so getting £15 felt like a fortune in those days.

SeaShellsSanctuary1 · 21/05/2025 10:01

A paper round in the mid 80s paid a max of £5. At inflation that would be £19.Nobody has consistently experienced in line with inflation pay rises for 40yrs.

Children under 16 are not entitled to minimum pay and looking back to when I was a teenager it was about the sum in your hand rather than trying to work out hourly rate.

I've always seen it as an opportunity for children to earn money if they wish rather than exploitation. The shop is offering a service of convenience rather than a grand plan to bring them millions at the expense of a childs welfare

justkeepswimingswiming · 21/05/2025 09:59

I used to do a paper round for 170 houses twice a week… I also had to stuff leaflets in the papers that came seperately.
i got a whopping £8 a week in 2005. Paper rounds have always been child labour.
I stuck to my paper round for two years then went to McDonald’s and got paid £3.88 per hour 😂

Original poster
CoffeTastesGreatToday · 21/05/2025 09:54

GoldieFish · 21/05/2025 09:46

But once he realised how poor the pay was, why did he continue with the job, especially if the round was lengthy?

I have no idea whether the pay is standard across post offices, but I knew the route of the paper deliveries in our old village (it was a local joke that the mother of one of the paperboys followed him around in her car, as he cycled, at a distance of about ten feet), and it was all within the village. Country roads in the dark in winter wouldn't have been safe for a child cyclist.

He only did it for about 4 weeks (and I did the final 5th week for him as he was v ill)

He's desperate for a job. So we thought he should give it a decent shot. See if it got quicker with practice etc... He nearly gave it up after week one, but he loved the feeling of being handed a brown envelope with cash in it on a Friday, so that stopped him handing his notice in on the first couple of Fridays that he'd planned to! After 4 weeks he was totally done though! And I think the fact he fell v ill and was probably not feeling great the day he handed his notice in, helped him get over the hurdle of handing it in!

OP posts:
Butterbly · 21/05/2025 09:51

In my experience paper rounds have always been like this since the 90s
Often with parents doing a lot of support work including driving, leaflet stuffing meaning it becomes a whole family endeavour

It seems identical to my experience in the early 00s but with identical pay!

GoldieFish · 21/05/2025 09:46

But once he realised how poor the pay was, why did he continue with the job, especially if the round was lengthy?

I have no idea whether the pay is standard across post offices, but I knew the route of the paper deliveries in our old village (it was a local joke that the mother of one of the paperboys followed him around in her car, as he cycled, at a distance of about ten feet), and it was all within the village. Country roads in the dark in winter wouldn't have been safe for a child cyclist.