Deliveroo to make staff in Irish office redundant as Covid-19 bites

Deliveroo is planning to implement redundancies at its Irish office as the company sheds staff across its global operations to deal with the effects of Covid-19.

The food delivery group has proposed seven of its 16 staff based in Dublin for redundancy, although The Irish Times understands that no final decisions have been made and that a consultation process with staff is now under way.

The London-based group is facing a prolonged impact from Covid-19 as a result of restaurant closures in the first instance and the expectation that consumers will be slow to spend once the crisis abates.

The Restaurant Association of Ireland (RAI) warned last week that the Government needed to support the sector in the form of an extension of the wage subsidy scheme otherwise it made little sense for a restaurant to reopen with a requirement for social distancing.

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"If the wage subsidy scheme does not continue then restaurants won't reopen because it wouldn't make financial sense to reopen but lose 40 to 50 per cent of your tables," said RAI chief executive Adrian Cummins.

Deliveroo, which is not eligible for the State's wage subsidy scheme here, has branched into grocery deliveries in addition to its food services, including with Spar, Mace, Londis and Fallon & Byrne. However, the company, backed by delivery giant Amazon, is understood to need to reduce costs immediately to see out the crisis.

Challenges

A Deliveroo spokesman would not comment on the extent of redundancies but said: “Like so many others Deliveroo has had to examine how to overcome the challenges we all face, as well as ensure we are in the strongest position possible following the crisis.

“This requires us to look at how we operate in order to reduce long-term costs, which sadly means some roles are at risk of redundancy. This has been extremely difficult for everyone at the company, and our absolute priority is to make sure those who are impacted are fully supported.”

The company is proposing to make 367 staff redundant across all of its markets. In total the company employes more than 2,500 people.

Before the crisis began Deliveroo had more than 1,200 restaurants on its books across the State. Launched in the Republic in 2015, it works with more than 1,000 riders here to deliver from restaurants in Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Galway.