Delivery services: Lieferando reduces around 2,000 driver offices

From the end of the year, the food delivery service Lieferando plans to relieve around 2,000 drivers nationwide, many of them in Hamburg. Lieferando said that around 20 percent of the total fleet. The reason is that the platform will work more with subcontractors when delivering on the so -called last mile.

“The competitive landscape and the market are increasingly changing and in-depth,” said Germany boss Lennard Neubauer of the German Press Agency. “Customers expect reliable service and short order times.” In some places, this cannot be sufficiently ensured with the current structures.

Hamburg particularly affected

In the future, in particular in smaller markets, such as Wiesbaden, Lübeck or Bochum, Lieferando will work with specialized logistics companies that will take over the delivery with their own drivers, said Neubauer. Lieferando also goes this way in Hamburg. Due to its size, the job cuts will hit the Hanseatic city particularly strongly.

The general works council should be informed about the measures in the afternoon. “Negotiations on a social plan should begin with the sister company as soon as possible,” emphasized Neubauer. The aim is to complete the process by the end of the year at the latest in the first quarter of 2026.

Rider has so far been employed by his own daughter

Lieferando belongs to the Dutch delivery service Just Eat Take Away. The business in Germany is managed by the daughter Lieferando Marktplatz Gesellschaft. The drivers were almost exclusively employed by another daughter, Takaway Express.

This should remain the case for most drivers in the future. Around five percent of the delivery servant is outsourced to specialized third -party providers, it said. The concept has already been tested in Berlin with a subcontractor. In some districts, too, this should continue to be implemented in the capital.

“This is pretty much the most important component of the whole story: the criteria of the fleet partners with whom we want to come together,” said Neubauer. A strict selection process is running to ensure that the riders are firmly employed there and are paid accordingly.

Fein self -employment in the industry a big problem

Lieferando points out that cooperation with subcontractors in the market is common practice. In fact, competitors such as Uber Eats and Wolt are like this. Wolt emphasizes that the drivers are always directly employed by their own partner companies. But that is not the case with all competitors.

Employee representatives therefore criticize exploitial conditions in the delivery service sector and widespread bogus self-employment. The problem is so large across the EU that the EU Commission has issued a platform directive to prevent sham self-employment in the platform business. This still has to be implemented at the national level.

The fact that Lieferando mostly employed the drivers directly was encouraged by employee representatives. The outrage is correspondingly great. “We are stunned, this is an absolute disaster,” said Mark Baumeister, head of the hospitality department at the Food Guest Gaststätten union (NGG), the dpa. “Lieferando releases the responsibility for employees, we cannot approve of that. We see this as an attack on co -determination and employees in Lieferando.”

Baumeister sent an appeal to politics. This must act to prevent such business models in the future. “We definitely need the commandment of the permanent position as in the meat industry.”

The NGG has been fighting for a collective agreement for the delivery fund and a minimum wage of 15 euros per hour for years. The union recently called up again to warning strikes in Hamburg. With the outsourcing of part of the delivery transaction to third -party companies, the union should be much more difficult to ensure uniform employment relationships.