SAN FRANCISCO — Uber and Lyft are facing a supply shortage, as returning and newly vaccinated customers again flood the apps, only to find out there aren’t enough drivers to serve them. It’s resulting in longer wait times and higher fares for riders. The companies cited drivers’ ongoing hesitance regarding fears of contracting the coronavirus and lingering concerns that demand has dried up, even as customers in many major cities have resumed riding. Uber and Lyft are offering incentives and paying out what they say are record wages as they attempt to lure drivers back to the apps.

“One of our top priorities is to rebuild the driver base,” Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said on Wednesday’s company earnings call. “With demand currently outstripping supply, driver earnings are at historically elevated levels.”

Lyft Chief Financial Officer Brian Roberts echoed those remarks on the company’s call this week, noting that the dynamic “led to record earnings for drivers in most U.S. cities.” The company’s CEO, Logan Green, said he expected drivers to return as gig workers come off unemployment as the year goes on and demand for delivery apps falls as businesses fully reopen.

“We think that in [the third quarter] and beyond, we’ll start to see some … trends that should give us real tail winds on the driver side,” he said on the company’s earnings call.But drivers said the coronavirus pandemic provided the first glimpse in years at what a life after Uber could look like. For many of them, it was a meaningful reset that gave them a better understanding of the toll the gigs had taken on their bodies, their mental health and their vehicles. It was the push they needed to finally begin their lives after Uber.

Some of the drivers said they realized the ride-hailing gigs were not the same jobs they signed up for in the early of days of the apps. In the early days, they were incentivized with promotions and what they regarded as sustainable wages, taking more than $1,000 in pay from a full workweek. But as the apps took off, pay models changed and earnings slowly dwindled as drivers saw their weekly pay fall into the hundreds.

“It’s very much not a career,” said Lyft driver Bruce Blood, 34, of Los Angeles, who has taken advantage of the higher wages but has also dealt with the fallout. “Passengers are angrier. When they get in my car, they are angrier about the time they’ve had to wait or the price that they’re being charged.”

One day recently, for example, Lyft sent him 30 minutes out of his way to pick up a passenger who was in a foul mood. When Blood called to say he had arrived, the passenger hurled a profanity at him as he complained that two previous drivers had canceled. The passenger abruptly hung up and was hit with a no-show fee.

“I collected two dollars,” Blood said. “So that’s an example of what I deal with.”

Uber’s tense relationship with its contract workforce has also played a part in the shortage, some drivers say. Through a ballot measure called Proposition 22, Uber and other gig economy companies in November defeated an effort to make California drivers full employees, which would have entitled them to benefits such as health insurance, a minimum wage and unemployment.