Before the city stirs in the quiet hours of the early morning, a 27-year-old doctor slips quietly out of his parents’ home. By 5:30 a.m., he eases his car into a low line of vehicles, engine humming, waiting to be among the first to pick up Addis Ababa’s earliest fares.
Two trips later, each earning the doctor a little more than 500 Birr, he heads to the clinic and trades his steering wheel for a stethoscope and begins a long, familiar day tending to patients.
By evening, his medical duties fulfilled, the doctor is back in the driver’s seat.
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Not too long ago, this scene would have stirred curiosity or even controversy. Today, inflation, weakened consumer purchasing power, and unlivable wages mean it is commonplace.
Doctors, bankers, teachers, business owners, and civil servants who once saw ride-hailing as a profession as separate from their own as plumbing or carpentry are quietly fitting early mornings, evenings, and weekends into their routines.
Platforms such as Ride, Feres, Yango, Little Ethiopia, and many more have opened a flexible window into the gig economy that has become a lifeline for many. Ride alone boasts a fleet of more than 90,000 drivers and claims to serve three million customers and over 400 corporate accounts.
For many formally employed professionals, these apps are the difference between making ends meet and falling behind.
This is no less true for the young doctor. Despite an impeccable resume and graduating with great distinction after eight years of medical study, his pay as an intern is thin. Even with overnight pay and weekend duty allowances added in, he brings home less than 10,000 Birr a month—hardly enough to meet his living expenses.
“I wanted to practice medicine because it took me so many years to study, and also because my family really wanted me to,” the doctor told The Reporter Magazine, preferring to remain anonymous. “But honestly, if my mother allowed it, I would have been a full-time ride-hailing driver.”
Living with his parents spares him rent and food costs for now, but he worries about what will happen when that safety net disappears.
“If medical salaries continue like this, I’ll definitely try to convince my parents to let me work full time as a ride-hailing driver. Ride-hailing never leaves you with empty pockets. You always have some cash on hand. My doctor’s salary, on the other hand, doesn’t even last until the third week of the month,” he said.
Not everyone schedules their hustle before dawn.
Yilkal Abebe, a branch supervisor at a commercial bank, schedules his driving around a rotating workday: his shift at the bank sometimes start at 8 a.m. and finish at 5 p.m., while on other days his shift begins at 10 a.m. and lasts 10 hours.
On the later-start days, he drives from 7 a.m. until heading into the office; on the early-finish days, he is back on the road for as many fares as he can manage before heading home at around 9 p.m.
Yilkal’s car is his own, which he says makes a big difference after fuel costs.
When both the morning and evening shifts align, Yilkal can make around 2,000 Birr in a day. But the income is unpredictable: there are days when passengers are few, and days when exhaustion keeps him off the road.
“It really depends,” says Yilkal. “On a good day, when I drive in the morning and evening, I can make around 2,000 Birr. But there are also days when I don’t get passengers, or I come home tired after work and can’t drive, so I earn nothing.”
A state media journalist, who asked not to be named, speaks in a practical yet cautious tone as he charts his earnings. He has built his ride-hailing routine around a regular working schedule. Like Yilkal, he carves out a few hours for ride-hailing after work.
“After leaving the office, I might do three or four trips in any direction I get,” said the journalist.
Like Yilkal, he can earn up to 2,000 Birr on a busy night, but the journalist says that is becoming increasingly rare.
“In the past, you could earn more, but these days, the business is not like before. There are many ride-hailing drivers and many service providers, so it’s not as easy to get work,” he told The Reporter Magazine.
The journalist shared that he had initially leased his car out to another ride-hailing driver for a fixed return, before eventually deciding he could earn more by driving himself. He also spoke about the drawbacks of juggling two lives.
“I worried colleagues would say, ‘Since he is doing ride-hailing, he isn’t doing office work properly.’ To avoid that, I gave even more energy to my office work. Honestly, having the side hustle made me more active at my main job because I wanted to show I could handle both,” said the journalist.
The price of that vigilance, he admits, is high.
“You miss time with family, friends, even having coffee with your parents. You don’t get time to read, update yourself, or think creatively. Ride-hailing puts cash in your pocket, but it drains your energy and your ability to plan other things,” he told The Reporter Magazine.
On taxation, he remains pragmatic.
He mainly uses Feres and Ride, and since the government collects earnings reports directly from the companies, taxes are assessed accordingly.
“You worry about the taxes when the time comes,” he says, offering a blunt piece of counsel. “It helps you survive. But it’s not life-changing.”
For others, the road offers more than cash.
Amelework Baharu, who once worked as a legal advisor in a government office, spent seven months as a full-time driver after she left government service and discovered unexpected rewards.
“I met very great people,” she says. “Not only did they pay me for the rides, some also gave me advice and helped me in other aspects of life.”
At one point, Amelework says she could earn 3,000 Birr from ride-hailing even on a slow day. Today, she runs her own shop and keeps driving part-time. She sits with the hailing app open while her assistant tends the store, slips out when a convenient request comes, and returns with fuel costs covered and, sometimes a new idea gleaned from a passenger’s advice.
She explains that part of her strategy is minimizing wasted trips.
“I try not to take an empty car from home or return without a passenger,” she says. “If I’m going somewhere anyway, I wait for a request along the way, so at least the fuel is covered.”
Taxes, which last year were higher than what ride-hailing drivers had been used to, mean the work is not as lucrative as it once was, according to Amelework.
Teachers are part of the trend too.
Daniel Asresahegn spends up to 20 hours a week ferrying passengers around the city, usually on weekends or after-school hours. Daniel teaches high school and says he earns up to 10,000 Birr a week from ride-hailing, depending on how many hours he puts in.
He sees the side-gig as an opportunity to keep his car from sitting idle, to glean a better understanding of the city, and to supplement his income.
“If I can cover fuel expenses for the rides as well as my main job, why not?” he says.
But, the work is demanding.
“The unpredictability takes a toll. You accept trips as they come. It is tiresome, especially with my main job. For someone attached to papers and books like me, it feels like hard labor. It is hard to plan or keep yourself up to date. Driving full-time is not an option for me; I never imagined doing it for a living. That’s not my style. Other disadvantages include missing appointments if you happen to be far away and wasting fuel when returning empty or when a passenger is headed in a different direction,” he told The Reporter Magazine.
Taken together, these personal accounts sketch the pattern of a city adapting. Ride-hailing fits at the edges of existing lives: early mornings to pick up airport runs, commutes that would otherwise be spent idling, evenings to top up dwindling salaries, and weekends to bolster household cash.
It can be socially enriching and strategically useful; it provides immediacy and control in a stretched economy. Yet it also erodes spare time, dampens creative growth, and stretches energy thin. Competition has increased, and taxation can sometimes catch part-timers unawares.
Two of the interviewees asked that their names not be used; their experiences are no less vivid for it. In a place where a monthly paycheck can barely last a couple of weeks, the certainty of a few hundred Birr in the pocket at day’s end is powerful.
“Ride-hailing never leaves you with empty pockets,” the young doctor said. For a growing number of professionals, the promise of extra income is what keeps them on the road long before sunrise and well after the office lights go out.
