Manila
MEDIUM · sourced, not yet live-verified
Pending live-verification. The source URLs have not yet been fetched and archived in this round; the city will return to a HIGH classification once that is done. Original rationale: Fairwork Philippines 2023 Ratings ("Protecting Worker Health, Safety, and Security in the Philippine Platform Economy"). in Fairwork published reports list at fair.work/en/fw/fairwork-reports/. Plus Fairwork Philippines team consulted on 2023 ASEAN Employment Outlook. Plus Inquirer/Riders-Sentro union Senate testimony (P15/delivery rate documented). Fairwork rated Foodpanda Philippines (verified at fair.work/en/ratings/platforms/philippines-foodpanda/). PHP 80/hr × $0.0175 USD = $1.40.
Only HIGH-confidence cities carry a full verification audit. See the methodology for what each tier means.
Earnings (USD per hour)
Source: Inquirer/United Delivery Riders Sentro Philippines
What would you take home in Manila?
Take-home, weekly
$24
Take-home, monthly
$105
Gross, weekly
$42
Gross, monthly
$183
With a 1BR apartment outside the city centre at $282/mo, rent costs more than your monthly take-home (268% of monthly net).
Take-home is gross hourly minus an estimated tax/expense rate per country. See the methodology page for the derivation. This widget assumes you actually work the hours you set. For app-based delivery, a portion of logged-in time is unpaid waiting; the headline rate reflects engaged time only where regulators have defined it.
Cost of living vs. earnings
That works out to roughly 80 hours per week. Rent at $282 per month is 116 percent of gross monthly earnings, which puts a Manila delivery driver in HUD's “severely cost-burdened” band by the federal definition (over 30 percent of gross income on housing). Measured against net take-home pay, which is what a worker actually has available to spend, the same rent is 201 percent. Affordable rent at this earnings rate, defined by HUD as no more than 30 percent of gross income, would be around $70 per month. Across the 46 cities in the dataset, Manila ranks 42nd for hours needed to cover rent, where lower is better.
Pay vs. local labour market
Gross hourly is 61% of local minimum wage, 56% of local median.
Notes
Philippines minimum wage varies by region; NCR (Manila) PHP 645/day. GrabFood and foodpanda dominate; many riders use motorcycles in heavy traffic.
View Manila on the interactive map
See full source citations for this city on the sources page. Read about how each metric is computed in the methodology.
Primary earnings source: newsinfo.inquirer.net/1675091/unfair-wages-group-says-some-riders-get-as-low-as-p15-per-delivery-due-to-competition