Employees of online delivery services in Germany quit their jobs more often over poor pay and working conditions than other unskilled workers, according to a study.
The survey, published on Wednesday by the Nuremberg Institute for Employment Research (IAB), found that there is generally a high turnover in the industry.
The IAB surveyed 2,370 employees at 11 app-based delivery services and a comparison group of 1,017 unskilled workers employed in other sectors. The respondents were asked about the reasons why they had taken up employment and how it ended.
In most cases, those working delivery jobs lasted less than a year, the survey found. More than half (59%) of those employed in delivery services said they had taken the decision to quit their jobs themselves. Among other labourers, by contrast, the figure was only 19%.
Some 44% of delivery service employees cited low pay as their main reason for quitting, while 41% blamed unpleasant working conditions. That was much higher than among workers in other sectors, at 10% and 20% respectively.
According to the study, redundancies also occur more frequently in online delivery services. “There seems to be a high pressure to perform in online delivery services, which comparatively often leads to resignations,” said Martin Friedrich, head of the research team.
The performance of employees can be recorded in real time by smartphones and controlled by algorithms, he said.
Accordingly, employees at online delivery services were comparatively more likely to report that they had been dismissed due to illness-related absences or dissatisfaction with their work performance.
By contrast, operational reasons such as restructuring and a decline in demand for labour played a significant role in the dismissal of unskilled workers in other sectors.
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