Fairwork Germany Ratings 2026: Uneven Working Conditions in the Platform Economy

Again, the Fairwork Germany Ratings 2026 point to the highly uneven working conditions in the German platform economy. The study evaluates seven of Germany’s most prominent digital labour platforms — Flink, Helpling, Bolt, Lieferando, Uber, Uber Eats, and Wolt — against Fairwork’s five principles: fair pay, fair conditions, fair contracts, fair management, and fair representation. The findings are based on desk research, evidence from online platforms, and interviews with workers.

The findings of the fourth Fairwork Germany Report reveal two very different realities in the sector. While one platform stands out for offering legal minimum pay, social protection, and stronger safeguards, most of the others fail to show that they provide fair pay, fair contracts, fair management, or fair representation. Convenience enjoyed by customers is still too often built on insecure and opaque conditions for workers.

The use of subcontracting in food delivery is further increasing. For workers, this often means no or inaccessible contracts, low and irregular income, poor access to communication and appeals processes to challenge decisions that affect their income, and a de facto exclusion from claiming co-determination rights. There is now a growing debate in Germany about the new rules for direct employment in food delivery, inspired by the law introduced in the meat industry in 2021.

As Germany enters the second year of transposing the EU Platform Work Directive into national law, the choices made now will shape the future of platform work for years to come.