Instacart Inc. plans to cut about 1,900 in-store shopping jobs, the company said in a letter.
Those expected to lose their jobs complete consumers’ orders at stores and hand them over to others for delivery, according to a letter an attorney for the company sent to a leader of a United Food and Commercial Workers International Union branch based in Chicago. The union, which enlisted area workers at the delivery company last year, made the letter available online.
On Tuesday, Instacart said in a blog post it would be winding down in-store operations at some retailers over the coming months as several customers moved to use their own employees but Instacart technology to fulfill orders. The company didn’t say in the post how many workers would lose positions.
Instacart is also planning on cutting the positions as it focuses on having workers both fulfill and deliver orders, the letter says. That approach streamlines “the selection and delivery process so that one…contractor simultaneously selects and delivers an order to a customer,” according to the letter.
The company now has about 500,000 people who work using that approach, the letter says. Starting in 2018, it began reducing the number of people handling in-store shopping only in several markets around the U.S. and now has fewer than 10,000 in that role, according to the letter. The company’s workforce is largely made up of so-called gig workers.
