Do children still do newspaper rounds or has delivery work changed?

[RosieLeaLovesTea]

Do newspaper delivery boys and girls still exist? When I was young that was a first step into other part time work. Possibly iin villages where there are older people living but I cannot see it in cities. Perhaps it been replaced with Uber eats and deliveroo?

Do people still get newspapers delivered?

Kids doing delivery work was phased out in our area last year. We now get our newspaper delivered by a firm called NewsTeam, who I must say are very reliable and efficient.
Shame for the kids though.

Yes, where I am. But I do stay in a small town.

where I work, in the next city, I see a young lad delivering papers, but he is driven around the route by (I assume) a parent. Could be that the route is too big to cover on foot as less people get papers delivered

Exactly, there is just not the call for physical newspapers today, which I think is a shame.
I still have a few subscriptions to magazines but they are only released a few times per year so just get sent in the post.

My son did a paper round for about 18 months when he was 13/14 (now 16 so not that long ago.) Was very hard to get and very poorly paid even for his age, but they do exist.

You’ve reminded me of my mum going to the newsagents to pay for the papers and the little slips they had to show how much you owed.

i can’t think of any newsagents that exist anymore where you could go to order newspaper deliveries.

No - there are no paper boys or girls where I live (mid sized town).

I think the number of newspapers delivered directly to peoples homes these days is vanishingly small and would not create a job for anyone.

My parents are in their late 70's and order the paper and pick it up from the local shop themselves.

I did a paper round about 20 years ago but it was hardly any money (even back then) for a round that was quite spread out and took a while. Not sure it was worth it to be honest

My parents “village” of 60000 people have young people doing delivery rounds. It seems that parents often accompany them. The distances are so much further these days as few people do have daily papers - so just one or two per street.

We have a local one from the newsagents, one of the elderly neighbours has a daily delivery.

Small town here, my son has done a paper round from age 13-16. The shop have around 5 or 6 delivery people and a semi permanent note on their door to advertise for new ones. (I think lots of kids don't stick at it)

When one of the kids is away or sick the boss drives the papers round in his car but it's a faff so he prefers to employ people. Money is shit of course, £25 a week cash in hand for 45 mins work 7 days a week. But my son doesn't mind it. He has around 40 houses on his round. So in short, yes people still get papers delivered and yes kids still do so.

My “paperboy” is a grown man. Come to think of it, it’s been about 30 years since I saw a youngster doing the job!

Lots of kids still do newspaper deliveries where I live because lots of people still read newspapers.

I stopped mine about 6 years ago.

I don’t think they’ve been replaced by Deliveroo. Infact I’ve just checked and you can’t seem to order newspapers from any of the apps near me; including Tesco Whoosh.

Theres not a lot of call for physical newspapers though. I suspect they’ve been replaced by the ability to read them online; and that the demographic of people who do still like a daily physical copy, also enjoy the trip out to get it each day.

I remember getting free papers through the door about twenty years ago. Newspaper was used for a range of tasks around the house too - cleaning windows, protecting surfaces, starting fires etc. These days we have to carefully save it for such tasks as we so rarely get it. We get most of our news off the internet now and I imagine other people do to - newspaper circulation has plummeted. There are a few delivery jobs round our area but very few.

It was always badly paid though and I know a few adults who developed health problems as a result of carrying the heavy bags as a child.

No not seen a papergirl or paperboy for many years.

Yep

Our newsagents have just retired, they had paper boys/girls a young lad used to deliver in our street, i think it is probably going to die out as people read less physical newspapers, my parents still buy a newspaper every day they walk to the shop though.

My son has done one since age 13. V poorly paid but nice bit of cash each week for him and great Christmas bonuses! Lots of old people where we live!

DS has done a paper round for a year, £25 a week for 5 days a week, takes just over half an hour. There is another boy who does a round at the same time from the same shop so they must have quite a lot of people still reading papers.

Yes my teen did it as their first job they got around £20 a week. They got £4-500 yes four to five hundred pounds tips for each of the 2 Christmases they had the round. They had 19 houses in the week and 37 on a Saturday. They now work in a chippy - can’t lie I do enjoy the free chips haha.

My parents still have a paper delivered, by a genuine young person (not with his/her mum), daily. Large village in the Midlands. You don't see this much where I live in London, but I think that's because they can be delivered overnight by the publishers within the M25. We only have them at weekends, but that's just a time thing. The newsagent is yards away so we fetch ours.

My DCs did them, both just Sundays, about 7 or 8 years ago. If one of them was ill I’d do them instead, it was quite nice to get out and about so early. They were delivered to our house by the shop with a printout and we you had to mark them up and put them in order before setting off - the shop was about 2 miles away and covered the entire town plus adjoining villages so they took them all round in a car to the deliverer’s houses. The houses on the round were quite spread out but it only took about half an hour. I still see youngsters out in the morning doing them sometimes

My friend does a morning paper round. She's 53.

I would've said no and that it's a bygone era. That was until what happened last Thursday whilst at my cousin Wilfred's who is located near shepton mallet. Well as I opened the door a grey haired man who I later found out is 86 was wearing a parcel bag over one should and introduced himself as the local paperboy. What I found incredible is that he was riding an electric scooter and as he pulled away he whipped out a baseball cap from his pocket and put it on backwards