New Delhi: Rising fuel costs and consumer price inflation led to an 11% fall in the real wages of gig workers per month in 2022, the Financial Express reported, citing a study.According to a study by the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), real wages of gig workers fell 11% to Rs 11,963 per month in 2022 as compared to 2019.However, the nominal income of the surveyed food delivery workers went up by 4% to Rs 20,026 in 2022, from Rs 19,239 per month in 2019.Note that nominal wages are not adjusted for inflation, whereas real wages are adjusted for inflation.The survey covered 924 food delivery workers and found that the real wages of gig workers delivering food parcels across cities have fallen. In contrast, the performance of foodtech platforms in terms of unit economics has improved, the newspaper reported.“Their net incomes definitely decreased because of the high input cost of fuel and rising inflation,” Bornali Bhandari, who lead the study at the NCAER, noted.“On one hand, it has become increasingly difficult to achieve daily/weekly targets over time, which affects their ability to earn additional income from incentives; this was due to increased traffic and greater competition. On the other hand, fuel costs had gone up,” the study said.“As fuel costs and overall inflation started to rise, workers found it increasingly difficult to meet monthly expenditure from their monthly income.”