Deliveroo leaves Germany

Author: Mario Schmidtgen
Date: 14.08.2019

Employees informed by e-mail

The British food delivery service Deliveroo has discontinued its business in Germany. The company is withdrawing from Germany by 16 August. This was announced on Monday. The company wants to concentrate on other European countries and the Asia-Pacific region. “The reason for this is the doubling of sales in other markets worldwide, and Deliveroo now wants to focus more on this,” the announcement said.

Deliveroo gave up business in ten German cities a year ago in order to concentrate on the big cities. Since the company is withdrawing completely from Germany, it will only be active in 13 countries. In May, Amazon joined the food supplier and initiated a financing round of 575 million dollars. A total of 1.5 billion dollars was raised to support growth.

Inadequate working conditions

According to the newspaper “Süddeutsche Zeitung”, the German drivers were informed in a short mail about the exit from Germany by boss Marcus Ross. At first this was considered to be a fake, because Ross did just enter the race in March and declared war on his competitor Takeaway. In addition, he promised “new jobs” and “more flexible, well-paid jobs for drivers” after Amazon’s entry.

The drivers, restaurants and employees of the food delivery service should receive “appropriate remuneration and goodwill packages”. Drivers who have worked in the last twelve weeks shall receive a “good will” payment of ten daily rates based on the average weekly income over the period. Drivers who have been employed for more than one year will receive a monthly wage for each working year.

Deliveroo has often been criticized for the lack of working conditions for bicycle couriers. According to the accusations, many employees worked without a fixed contract and had to provide their own bicycle. In addition, the delivery service had reduced the number of employees in order to prevent the formation of a works council. According to the company, Deliveroo employs around 2,500 people worldwide on a permanent basis and has more than 60,000 drivers in total.