Glovo pulls out the scissors in its supermarket business. The Spanish company has announced today to the staff of this division the start of an Employment Regulation File (ERE) that will affect one hundred employees. Negotiations begin now, so it is expected that this figure may change. It is the consequence of the closure of six of these ‘dark stores’ in different cities in Spain. From the management they allege “difficult access to financing” and an “insufficient evolution of business volume.” The UGT union, the majority in the company, denounces a “hardening” of the salary conditions of the staff that remain in the establishments that will remain open.
This Thursday the staff was informed of the closure of the centers in Bilbao, Pamplona, Tenerife, Las Palmas, Alicante and Granada. The rest of the establishments in Barcelona, Madrid, Zaragoza, Valencia, Seville, Málaga and Palma de Mallorca will remain open. In total there are around a hundred employees who were hired directly by the company and were not self-employed like the ‘riders’. Now the month-long negotiation begins, so the final figure will not be known until mid-February.
The company alleges “difficult access to capital and investment” and an “insufficient evolution of business volume” recorded in recent months in these stores. A spokesperson for the firm points out that these billing figures meant that there was no forecast of being profitable. Super Glovo opened before the pandemic with the aim of growing in the delivery of convenience purchases delivered by its own ‘riders’. Now it seeks to reduce investment.
From UGT, the majority union in the works council of this division, they assure that along with this ERE there has been a “hardening” of the working conditions of the rest of the employees. He insists that the firm has withdrawn from the sector agreement and has cut salary remuneration by eliminating supplements such as the transport bonus, the holiday work bonus or the clothing bonus. For the organization, the economic situation alleged by the company is “doubtful.”
Already in 2023, the company also carried out a collective layoff for its headquarters in Barcelona, coinciding with another cut at the parent company – the German Delivery Hero. A total of 140 employees left after an agreement between management and staff with an increase in compensation. At a global level, the platform announced the departure of a total of 250 workers – the rest were distributed among other offices.
In parallel with these adjustments to its own workforce, the company continues to be immersed in its struggle with the Ministry of Labor over its labor model with delivery drivers. Delivery Hero announced last November, in the presentation of results for the third quarter of the year, that it will provision between 30 and 45 million euros quarterly as a “contingent liability” for potential fines from the Labor Inspection. The Germans already admitted that they had received the first act for their revised model based on the new ‘rider law’. This amount would be added to the 400 million that was also revealed in 2023 and that referred to the period between the summers of 2021 and 2023.