Glovo announces a workforce reduction plan to lay off 750 workers in Spain

BarcelonaGlovo informed unions on Wednesday that it is opening a workforce reduction plan (ERE) that will affect 750 workers across Spain, as previously reported. The CountryThe delivery company will reduce its service in more than 60 locations across the state, which it has not yet specified, "to avoid closure," as explained by a company spokesperson.

The measure comes just over eight months after Glovo will begin to hire its own delivery drivers in July of last year. A change of model forced by law. rider approved by the Spanish government, which allowed them to put an end to ten years of using bogus self-employed workers to send their packages.

"After this difficult decision, the company will continue working to consolidate its operating model," a Glovo spokesperson emphasized. According to the company, now owned by the German firm Delivery Hero, the restructuring plan will not affect approximately 800 Spanish cities, where normal operations will continue. Throughout Spain, Glovo has 21,000 delivery drivers, some directly employed and others through third-party companies, although it does not specify how many fall under each category. In a statement sent to union representatives, which ARA has obtained, the company justifies the implementation of the workforce reduction plan (ERE) due to "organizational and production-related reasons, stemming from the need to adapt the company's operational structure to guarantee its viability and competitiveness." "The current delivery model has proven inefficient and has led to a significant drop in service quality, especially in small and medium-sized towns. This situation makes maintaining the current model unsustainable," the Catalan-based company stressed.

For CCOO, the union with the largest presence at Glovo, the announced workforce reduction plan (ERE) aims to "outsource the staff and seek a different labor model." "If they truly wanted to cease operations in these 60 cities, they would justify the plan on economic grounds, but they are citing organizational reasons to outsource everything. We completely distrust this company, which only wants to jeopardize the country's labor model," laments Carlos Sola of CCOO.

Glovo has declined to specify which 60 locations will be affected by the plan, but has indicated a long list of provinces, including Barcelona, ​​Tarragona, and Girona. The company also states that layoffs are planned in Valencia, Alicante, Ciudad Real, Guadalajara, Cáceres, Badajoz, Seville, Málaga, Cádiz, Las Palmas, Guipúzcoa, Ceuta, and Melilla.

After the "disguised ERE"

The formal opening of the collective dismissal procedure (ERE) comes after several unions warned that the company was implementing a "covert ERE" through thousands of disciplinary dismissals across Spain, "many of them unfair," according to the CCOO union, which will file a complaint with the National Court. The CGT union also reports that at least 300 workers have been dismissed in the province of Barcelona since July of last year. "This is not the first time they have resorted to these kinds of fraudulent practices," the CGT lamented. These dismissals are in addition to the "disconnections" of delivery drivers that the union says occurred with the change in the employment model. These drivers were never actually hired.