Fairwork Germany 2025 Ratings Reveal Ongoing Unfair Working Conditions for Platform Workers

The 2025 Fairwork Germany Ratings highlight ongoing challenges in ensuring fair labour standards across the platform economy. The continued use of independent contractor status in domestic work, coupled with the growing reliance on subcontracting arrangements in ride-hailing and food delivery, undermines workers’ rights and freedoms. Across all platforms assessed, workers remain subject to opaque algorithmic management systems. These findings shed new light on how the European Directive on Improving Working Conditions in Platform Work may affect decent work standards in Germany. 

This landmark study evaluates seven of Germany’s most prominent digital labour platforms — Bolt, Flink, Helpling, Lieferando, Uber, Uber Eats, and Wolt — against Fairwork’s five principles: fair pay, fair conditions, fair contracts, fair management, and fair representation.

Read the Report Explore the Scores

The Fairwork scores were determined through rigorous desk research, interviews with workers, and platform-submitted evidence. Didem Özkiziltan-Wagenführer, Zeynep Karlidag, and Debarun Dutta conducted the interviews with the workers. Patrick Feuerstein (WZB Berlin Science Centre), Tobias Kuttler (WZB Berlin Science Centre), Didem Özkiziltan-Wagenführer (WZB Berlin Science Centre), Debarun Dutta (WZB Berlin Science Centre), Zeynep Karlidag (WZB Berlin Science Centre), Martin Krzywdzinski (WZB Berlin Science Centre) and Mark Graham (Oxford Internet Institute) authored the report. 

Learn more about the Fairwork methodology here. 

Key findings 

1. Fair Pay – Only Flink could provide evidence of its ability to ensure that its workers earn the minimum wage after costs. 
2. Fair Conditions – None of the platforms analysed could provide sufficient proof of their efforts to protect workers from task-related risks in their daily work.  
3. Fair Contracts – Flink, Helpling and Lieferando could provide evidence of clear and accessible contracts or terms of service. 
4. Fair Management – Flink and Lieferando were able to demonstrate that they have a formalised process where workers can effectively appeal disciplinary decisions, such as deactivations from the platform. Lieferando provided additional evidence for equity in the management process. 
5. Fair Representation – Only Liferando was able to provide evidence that it allows for the collective representation of workers.  

Looking Ahead 

As Germany moves toward implementing the EU Platform Work Directive, this moment presents a critical opportunity to reshape the regulatory landscape of platform work. However, real progress will depend on whether policymakers take concrete action to provide decent work for all. Without robust regulatory frameworks and effective enforcement mechanisms, platform workers will remain vulnerable to unfair and precarious working conditions.