Next in the firing line, Glovo lays off 250 staff members

Glovo has released 6.5% of its workforce, bidding an emotional goodbye earlier today to 250 of its workers.

In a press bulletin, Glovo co-founder and CEO Óscar Pierre said all other avenues had been exhausted, following a nine-month cost cutting drive aimed at improving its unit economics.

Though Pierre suggests Glovo employees may not have seen it coming, the lay offs aren't really a complete surprise. Cutbacks at international offshoots of the Barcelona-HQed company, itself a subsidiary of Germany's Delivery Hero since July 2022,  had already been confirmed. Romanian food delivery startup Foodpanda was absorbed into Glovo last May. Weeks later, around 40% of Romanian staff had been laid off.

These additional lay offs cut deeper with most axed jobs coming at Glovo's Barcelona-based operations. However management has tried to spare frontline workers, instead opting to drop business support, recruiters and data specialists.

Pierre took responsibility for decisions that may have led to redundancies, but maintained earlier predictions of double-digit growth for Glovo this year. 

"I and the management team deeply regret that this is necessary and take full responsibility for the decisions that led us here," Pierre said.

"To many of you, today’s news may come as a surprise. This wasn’t in our plans six months ago. We’ve tried to avoid layoffs at all costs by evaluating various scenarios, decreasing costs & improving unit economics over the last nine months to pave the way forward. 

"The layoff decision largely impacts the company’s headquarters in Barcelona in areas such as business support functions, recruitment and data.

"It will be tough and hard to say goodbye to so many who have worked hard to build Glovo over the last years and are directly affected. I’m deeply sorry for that, and this is why I believe it’s important for me to explain how we arrived at this decision, as well as how I see the future of Glovo and our industry. "