{"id":263985,"date":"2025-03-21T19:19:15","date_gmt":"2025-03-21T19:19:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/21\/uber-to-offer-all-uk-drivers-20-hours-of-free-childcare\/"},"modified":"2025-03-21T19:19:15","modified_gmt":"2025-03-21T19:19:15","slug":"uber-to-offer-all-uk-drivers-20-hours-of-free-childcare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/21\/uber-to-offer-all-uk-drivers-20-hours-of-free-childcare\/","title":{"rendered":"Uber to offer all UK drivers 20 hours of free childcare"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Uber<\/div>


\n<\/p>\n

\n

Every Uber driver in the UK will be eligible for 20 hours of free childcare under a new scheme intended to get more women driving taxis.<\/p>\n

They will be able to use the allowance through a nannying and babysitting app for the rest of 2025.<\/p>\n

“We really, really would like to attract more female drivers onto the Uber platform,” said Uber UK General Manager Andrew Brem.<\/p>\n

But the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB), which represents drivers, said “anyone can see through” what it called a “cynical PR stunt”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

“If Uber really wanted to support families, they would pay drivers enough money so that they could afford time off to be with their children,” it told the BBC in a statement. <\/p>\n

“Instead Uber’s insultingly low fees force drivers to spend so long on the roads that in many cases relationships rupture and families are broken up,” it added.<\/p>\n

Uber said it trialled free childcare with 1,000 drivers and had an overwhelmingly positive response – with 96% of those who took part saying it made it easier to take on work.<\/p>\n

Now, the scheme will be extended to the more than 100,000 Uber drivers in the UK.<\/p>\n

“Like some other occupations, [Uber driving] happens to be predominantly male – that’s not something that we’d like,” Mr Brem told BBC News.<\/p>\n

He expects the free childcare to initially be used by existing drivers rather than new ones, “but it’s more, I think, to get drivers into the habit of doing this.”<\/p>\n

He adds: “By testing it at no cost, you have the experience, and you see the ease of getting childcare through this particular route.”<\/p>\n

Uber UK will keep the scheme open for the rest of the year and then “see how it goes,” in terms of extending it further, Mr Brem said.<\/p>\n

The firm will hope the move may help assuage drivers who have taken strike action in recent months over what they say is unfair pay.<\/p>\n

In October, Uber drivers in Glasgow told the BBC<\/a> their wages had fallen in 2024, despite price increases being passed on to customers.<\/p>\n

Then in January, striking drivers said<\/a> they were working “too many hours” despite having families at home. <\/p>\n

“I haven’t yet come across an employee survey, including our own, where people don’t say that they want to earn more,” said Mr Brem.<\/p>\n

“I do understand that our main role in helping them more, though, is to is to keep the platform super busy, so our focus is on actually growth of demand,” he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Mr Brem said drivers could now see a weekly breakdown of how much money they earned compared to how much of the fare Uber takes.<\/p>\n

He added that, coming out of lockdowns, there was a period of “unusually higher earnings” for drivers, as demand outstripped supply of available rides.<\/p>\n

“We’re more in a sort of normal situation now, but that probably affects some of the experiences that [drivers] have had,” he says.<\/p>\n

Uber has also highlighted the experience of one mother of three who participated in its childcare pilot and said it had been a “massive boost”.<\/p>\n

Tania Naseer said she used the childcare during work and also to go out with friends.<\/p>\n

“As a mother, it’s important for me to have my own batteries charged in order to be there for my children,” she told BBC News.<\/p>\n

“Now, I can hire a sitter for the weekend and then I can work the weekend, and they are the busiest hours.”<\/p>\n

She added: “Ideally, yes, a pay rise would be great, but right now it seems to be working how it is.”<\/p>\n

The childcare will be offered through a babysitting and nannying app called Bubble, which matches parents with childminders. <\/p>\n

Drivers can use the free hours whenever they want, not just when they are working for Uber.<\/p>\n

Mr Brem says he hopes drivers using the childcare scheme will “recognise this is a valuable thing that they wish to carry on themselves” after they have used their free hours.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The BBC found drivers were being offered different fees – with some receiving 47% less than the total fare<\/figcaption><\/p>\n


\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every Uber driver in the UK will be eligible for 20 hours of free childcare under a new scheme intended to get more women driving taxis. They will be able to use the allowance through a nannying and babysitting app for the rest of 2025. “We really, really would like to attract more female drivers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263986,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/74f9\/live\/430ac180-0664-11f0-94d4-6f954f5dcfa3.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[604],"tags":[1400,5202,508,1493,3626,5195],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263985"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263985"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263985\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":263987,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263985\/revisions\/263987"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}