Over the past year, amidst a global pandemic and an economic crisis, Uber pivoted to encourage consumers to stay home and stay safe. In these extraordinary circumstances, frontline workers trusted Uber for a safe ride, restaurants leaned on Uber Eats to transition their operations to delivery and takeout, and drivers and delivery people acted as everyday heroes to move essential items to Canadians coast to coast. 

A new report, The Impact of Uber in Canada, was published today to better understand and quantify Uber’s value in 2020. It found that Uber unlocked an estimated $6.5 billion in value for the Canadian economy, by saving time, expanding mobility, creating new business for restaurants and the hospitality industry, and providing flexible earning opportunities for thousands of drivers and delivery people in Canada.

Other key findings from the report include: 

Uber offers a safe, convenient, fast, and often sustainable way to travel

  • New technologies such as ridesharing, carpooling and electric bikes are making it easier to get around, and reducing the burden of congestion. 63% of riders without access to a car said the availability of ridesharing services like Uber was important to their choice of not owning a vehicle. 
  • Uber saves riders over 13 million hours a year. That is the equivalent of driving from Halifax to Vancouver over 230,000 times.
  • 81% of female riders say that safety is an important factor in their choice to use Uber.
  • Racialized people were twice as likely to be users of Uber as the general population.

Uber enables a flexible source of income for drivers and delivery people

  • 89% of drivers and delivery people say that schedule flexibility is important to them when looking for work, and a majority of drivers said that they would rather retain the right to choose their own hours, even if the alternative was a 20% increase in earnings. 
  • It is estimated that this increased flexibility is worth $323 million to drivers and delivery people.

Uber is an economic multiplier for restaurants, cafes, and local businesses

  • In 2020, Uber Eats drove an additional $570 million to restaurants in Canada, creating $2.3 billion in gross economic value.
  • In 2019 Uber supported over $386 million of activity in the Canadian night-time economy.

“This report breaks down the billions of dollars in economic value Uber helps create annually in Canada into its constituent parts: giving Canadians convenient and safe access to transportation and food, helping local restaurants find customers even during pandemic lockdowns, and providing highly flexible access to work to drivers and delivery people,” says Jonathan Hall, Chief Economist at Uber. “While 2020 was in all ways a challenging year, Uber’s users found new ways to leverage our platform to their benefit.  The report will serve as a benchmark for the coming years, so we can continue to find ways to support Canada’s priorities and be a partner as we move through recovery to build back stronger.”

As the largest mobility platform in the world, we have a responsibility to all of the drivers and delivery people who earn on the platform, as well as the cities in which we operate and everyone who uses our services. The data from this report shows that Uber has a net positive contribution to the Canadian economy at the national and regional level. We’ll continue to find ways to help Canadians go anywhere and get anything. We’ll keep conversations flowing with drivers and delivery people to ensure a positive and rewarding experience, and we’ll soon introduce more ways to drive Canada’s recovery. 

Read the full report here.