As fuel prices increase, ride-hailing drivers are feeling the squeeze more than ever at the pump

Drivers across Canada say the latest jump in fuel costs is cutting deeper into already thin earnings, forcing longer hours, harder choices and growing uncertainty about how long they can keep going

For Kuljeet Singh, the stress begins before the gas pump stops clicking.

Each time he pulls into a station in Vancouver, he braces himself for the total. He watches the numbers climb, litre by litre, dollar by dollar, knowing that every extra amount he pays at the pump is money taken directly out of what he earns on the road.

His reaction, he says, is not just frustration. It is physical.

His heart starts racing when he fills up, Singh says, only half-joking when he describes the anxiety of seeing fuel costs surge. For drivers like him, rising gas prices are not just an inconvenience or a household budget problem. They are a direct threat to daily income.

Singh drives for Uber and Lyft in Vancouver, where fuel prices are among the highest in the country. He is also director of the Ride Hailing Driver Association of British Columbia. In recent days, he says, each refill has been costing him an extra $20 to $25 compared with what he was paying before the latest spike. Because he has to fill up every three to four days, those increases add up quickly.

Over a month, Singh estimates, he is paying roughly $150 to $200 more just to keep his car on the road.

That extra cost may not seem catastrophic to some people, but for workers in the ride-hailing industry, where profit margins are already tight and expenses are largely borne by drivers themselves, it can mean the difference between staying above water and falling behind.

“You feel like, how am I going to survive?” Singh said. “What should I do? Should I put more hours in? Should I work 14, 15 hours? It’s a very hard decision.”

His comments reflect a broader reality now taking shape for app-based drivers across Canada, as a fresh jump in gas prices puts more pressure on workers who were already struggling with the rising cost of living, unstable earnings and weak labour protections.

Global conflict, local consequences

The latest increase in gas prices has been linked to renewed turmoil in global energy markets following military strikes involving the United States, Israel and Iran. The widening conflict has increased fears about disruption in and around the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most strategically important oil shipping routes.

That narrow passage between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman carries a significant share of the world’s oil shipments. Any threat to tanker traffic there tends to send immediate shockwaves through global crude markets. Even the possibility of a prolonged disruption can push prices up, as traders react to uncertainty over supply.

That is what experts say Canadians are seeing now.

Although Canada is itself a major oil producer, domestic fuel prices are still shaped by global crude markets. Oil is a globally traded commodity, and gasoline prices in Canada respond not only to domestic production levels but also to international supply shocks, refining costs, transportation issues and market expectations.

So while there may be no shortage of oil being produced in Canada, drivers still feel the impact when world prices jump.

As of Tuesday afternoon, GasBuddy showed the average price of gasoline across Canada at around 168.1 cents per litre. In British Columbia, the average was significantly higher, sitting at 187.3 cents per litre. In some locations across the province, prices had already moved above the $2-per-litre mark.

For ordinary households, those numbers mean higher transportation costs and more pressure on monthly budgets. For ride-hail drivers, they mean something sharper: the cost of doing business is climbing fast, while earnings remain uncertain.

An industry built on thin margins

App-based drivers have long argued that ride-hail work is less flexible and less profitable than it appears from the outside. While the platforms market the work as a convenient way to earn money on one’s own schedule, drivers say the reality is shaped by long hours, inconsistent demand, algorithm-controlled fares and a constant stream of out-of-pocket expenses.

Fuel is among the biggest of those expenses. Unlike many traditional workers, ride-hail drivers are generally responsible for paying their own gas, vehicle maintenance, insurance, repairs, cleaning costs and, in many cases, car financing as well. That means that when gas prices rise suddenly, their effective pay can fall just as suddenly.

There is no automatic mechanism that guarantees drivers more money when operating costs increase. Unless companies choose to adjust fares or add a surcharge, the driver absorbs the full increase.

That can create a punishing cycle. If fuel costs rise, drivers need to work more to earn the same amount they were making before. But working more also means using more gas, adding more wear to the vehicle and increasing physical and mental fatigue.

Singh says he already works seven days a week, as many drivers do. For someone in that position, there are not many easy options left. He cannot simply add another day. The only possible adjustment is to work longer hours in the same day.

That is where concern is growing.

Drivers and labour advocates say rising fuel prices are not only a financial issue. They can also become a safety issue. If workers feel compelled to stay on the road longer in order to make up for shrinking margins, the risk of exhaustion and burnout increases. That can affect drivers’ health and potentially passenger safety as well.

Drivers cut back, improvise and worry

The financial strain described by Singh is echoed in Ontario by Earla Phillips, vice-president of the Rideshare Drivers Association of Ontario. Phillips, who has been driving for companies such as Uber and Lyft for nearly a decade, says many drivers were already in a precarious position before the latest surge in gas prices.

Some were struggling to keep up with rent. Others were behind on car payments. Some, she says, were turning to food banks to make ends meet.

Now, with gas prices surging again, that precariousness is deepening.

Phillips says she has not filled her tank completely in quite some time because the cost is simply too high. Instead, she puts in only enough to keep driving for a day or two.

That change in habit is revealing. It shows how closely some workers are managing their cash flow and how little financial buffer they have. A full tank, once routine, has become a luxury or a risk.

She says $20 used to bring her tank up to roughly half full. Now it can take $30 or $35 just to move the gauge past the halfway mark.

To reduce losses, Phillips has also become more selective about the trips she accepts. Like many drivers, she tries to avoid “deadheading” — the common ride-hail problem of driving back empty after dropping a passenger off in a far-off location.

If a driver takes someone to a destination where there is little chance of quickly securing another fare, the return trip can amount to unpaid driving. The vehicle is still consuming fuel, but no money is coming in.

During times of high gas prices, those empty kilometres matter more than ever.

That may lead to more waiting time between trips, fewer accepted rides in certain areas and less willingness among drivers to take marginally profitable fares. The effect can be felt not only by workers but by passengers too, especially in places where demand is uneven or where return fares are uncertain.

Pressure on gig worker protections

The fuel squeeze is also exposing long-running concerns about how gig workers are treated in Canada.

Over the past few years, governments in provinces such as Ontario and British Columbia have introduced rules aimed at offering at least some protection to app-based workers. Those changes have been presented as progress in addressing the vulnerabilities of gig labour, including low pay, uncertain conditions and weak safety standards.

But critics — including workers, organizers and labour experts — say those measures do not go nearly far enough.

One of the central complaints is that official protections often fail to reflect the true cost of the work. A driver may appear to be earning a reasonable hourly amount before expenses are deducted. But once fuel, maintenance, insurance and depreciation are factored in, the actual take-home income may be far lower.

Fuel spikes make that gap impossible to ignore.

If a worker’s effective earnings can be sharply reduced overnight by changes in world oil markets, then the protections in place are clearly limited. Drivers argue that any serious conversation about fair pay must consider not only gross earnings but net earnings after the actual costs of working are accounted for.

That debate becomes especially urgent in a sector where drivers have little control over pricing. Fares are largely determined by the platform, and drivers do not have the ability to independently increase prices when their costs go up.

In practice, that means they can neither negotiate higher pay nor easily pass the increase on to customers.

Who should absorb the cost?

That question now sits at the heart of the issue: if fuel prices soar, who should bear the burden?

Many drivers believe companies such as Uber and Lyft should step in with automatic fuel surcharges when gas prices pass a certain threshold. Such surcharges could be added temporarily to the cost of a ride and directed to drivers to help offset higher expenses.

Phillips says that would be a fairer arrangement than forcing individual drivers to absorb every cent of the increase on their own.

There is precedent for such a move.

In 2022, when fuel prices surged after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Uber introduced a temporary fuel surcharge on rides. The company said at the time that rising gas prices were hurting ride-share drivers “more than most,” acknowledging how closely their earnings are tied to fuel costs.

That earlier surcharge did not eliminate the problem, and some drivers argued it was too small to fully offset the real increase in costs. Still, it represented a recognition that fuel shocks should not simply be treated as a private problem for workers to solve by driving longer or earning less.

Whether ride-hailing platforms will adopt similar measures again remains unclear. But for drivers facing rising costs now, the issue feels urgent.

Without company action, they say, they are being left to carry the burden of a crisis they did not create and cannot control.

The burnout risk

Beyond income and operating costs, many drivers say their biggest fear is what this kind of pressure does over time.

The stress of constantly recalculating expenses, stretching fuel, accepting only certain trips, and wondering whether the day’s earnings will cover the next fill-up can take a heavy mental toll. Add that to long hours, traffic, difficult passengers, and the physical strain of spending most of the day behind the wheel, and the result can be burnout.

Phillips says she worries not just about herself but about the broader safety implications. Uber and Lyft have limits on how long drivers can stay active in one stretch — generally 12 hours at a time. But drivers can potentially move from one app to another once they reach a limit on one platform.

That means someone under financial pressure may still find ways to remain on the road for extended periods.

The concern is straightforward: when people feel they must work more and more just to keep up with rising costs, rest becomes harder to justify, even when it is necessary.

That is a dangerous dynamic in any transport-related job.

A wider cost-of-living warning

In many ways, the pressure facing ride-hail drivers mirrors a wider cost-of-living problem. Inflation, housing costs, food prices and debt burdens have already been weighing heavily on low- and middle-income households. For gig workers, that broader strain is intensified by the fact that the tools they need to work — in this case, a car and fuel — are becoming more expensive too.

That makes the current gas price spike more than just an energy story. It is also a labour story, a policy story and a cost-of-living story.

It reveals how vulnerable app-based workers remain in a system where they take on many of the risks of self-employment without having the full independence or bargaining power that self-employment normally implies. They are expected to absorb volatility, manage costs and keep services running, but they have little control over fares and limited institutional protection when their expenses jump.

For now, the outlook remains uncertain. Analysts say gas prices may continue rising if conflict in the Middle East drags on and oil flows remain constrained. That would mean more weeks — or longer — of financial strain for drivers already operating close to the edge.

For Singh, Phillips and many others like them, the issue is painfully immediate. It shows up every few days at the pump, every time the tank nears empty. It appears in each decision about whether to accept another ride, drive another hour or spend another $30 just to stay on the road.

For passengers, rising gas prices may mean costlier travel or longer wait times. For drivers, they mean something more fundamental: another reminder that in the gig economy, even a global conflict can quickly become a personal financial emergency.

And unless something changes — whether through easing fuel costs, stronger labour protections or support from the platforms themselves — many ride-hail drivers will continue facing the same grim equation: spend more, work longer and still wonder whether the job is worth it.