Another subcontractor in Liverpool, who declined to provide his title as a result of he was frightened about shedding his job, has additionally encountered issues. He claims that Randstad doesn’t compensate its distant couriers—who’re in a position to begin earn a living from home as an alternative of from a Just Eat courier hub—in the event that they undergo bike issues whereas they’re imagined to be working. “If I have a puncture or something happens with my bike, [Randstad] doesn’t put me on pause, they switch off my app,” says the courier. “So even if it’s one hour or two hours, it’s not paid.”
In response to those allegations, Rachael Langton, operations director at Randstad UK, mentioned the corporate’s “bespoke agency worker delivery model in partnership with Just Eat” allowed couriers to “enjoy a blend of job flexibility and benefits including hourly pay (higher than minimum/living wage), sick pay, holiday pay, and pension contributions.” Andrew Kenny, Just Eat UK’s managing director, says the corporate takes courier welfare critically. “Just Eat was the first delivery aggregator in the UK to offer a worker model where couriers receive an hourly wage, sick pay, holiday pay, and pension contributions,” he says.
Academics who examine the platform economic system are involved that outsourcing’s predominant goal is to protect well-known gig economic system firms—which obtain extra scrutiny—from blame when workforce issues inevitably come up. “Subcontracting out allows them to say, ‘We don’t have a relationship with this courier. We have a relationship with our subcontractor, and they take care of it,’” says Matt Cole, a researcher at Fairwork, a analysis group at Oxford University. But he nonetheless believes that Just Eat’s use of Randstad is a step in the precise route, even when the contracts are solely non permanent, lasting for six months. “This is a degree better than the self-employed, independent contractor standard that existed in the early days of the gig economy,” he says. “But it’s essentially only climbing up one rung in the ladder of precarity towards the standard employment contract.”
It is just not clear how a lot outsourcing is costing Just Eat, as the corporate and Randstad declined to share monetary particulars in regards to the contract. But in Randstad’s newest outcomes, launched in October 2021, the corporate reported 57 percent growth within the UK (although it didn’t present a income determine), which is a a lot steeper improve than in some other European nation that quarter. Speaking in an earnings name, Jacques van den Broek, the corporate’s CEO, attributed this progress to logistics, ecommerce, and the gig economic system.
The following month, Just Eat CEO Jitse Groen spoke at Randstad’s capital markets day—an occasion designed to share extra details about a firm with buyers and analysts—and mentioned the corporate’s predominant problem was hiring sufficient individuals, particularly in markets the place there was very low unemployment. “Obviously, hiring a lot of people in so many different markets is difficult for us, and therefore parties like Randstad help us set those contracts up and get us those people,” he mentioned.
Outsourcing employees is just not a new observe for Just Eat. In 2017, three years earlier than it introduced plans to provide couriers extra advantages, it had struck a cope with Stuart, which nonetheless permits riders to be paid per drop, not like these working for Randstad. The firm operated usually obscurity till it tried to drop that price from £4.50 to £3.40, prompting couriers within the British metropolis of Sheffield to strike in December.
