Gorillas lays off 40% of its workforce in Spain. The ultra-fast delivery platform has made an ERE official this morning that affects 212 workers out of the total of 500 that it employs in this country.
"We have been negotiating with the workers and in the end, we fired fewer people than expected," says the CEO, Magdalena Szuszkiewicz. The cuts, she explains, affect all professional categories equally as well as all the cities where it operates: Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and Alicante. In this last city, the German company has decided to close operations so all jobs will disappear.
In the rest of the towns, the activity is going to be concentrated in the most central warehouses while those located on the outskirts, which are newer, are going to be transferred. To adapt to the new operation, the company plans to suspend the service in August and resume it in September.
The movement responds to the financial situation of the company, which is in losses. Last month it already announced cuts worldwide due to the demands of investors, who ask to adjust costs as much as possible due to the fall in the stock markets and the unfavorable global situation.
In June, the company cut 300 jobs at its Berlin headquarters and announced that it was focusing its efforts on the countries where it has the most presence: Germany, France, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. Spain, where it landed less than a year ago, was not among one of them and then, the firm announced that to continue in this country it had to ally itself with a strategic partner.
Szuszkiewicz comments that the firm is already in talks with several companies that have experience in the delivery and food sector. Negotiations, he says, are more advanced with a venture capital fund that has made investments in this sector.
Gorillas plans to close the deal in September, when the identity of this partner will be known. "With this alliance, we will be able to continue operating and reach profitability in June 2023," celebrates the board.
