Money Buzz! Europa

Tag: job cuts

  • Volkswagen AG will cut 5,000 jobs from its German factories

    Volkswagen AG will cut 5,000 jobs from its German factories

    Volkswagen AG will lay off 5,000 employees from its German factories by the end of 2023, as part of a cost-cutting program.

    Up to 900 employees are expected to opt for the early retirement scheme, while about 2,000 to 4,000 employees will leave the company following the gradual cut of their activities.

    Company sources told Reuters that the number of jobs at six factories in Germany of the main brand, VW, which currently has about 120,000 employees, will be cut.

    In 2019, VW announced the lay off of 7,000 employees.

    Handelsblatt newspaper, which had previously announced the plan, said the German group would cut up to 5,000 jobs.

  • Skoda wants to cut 2% of administrative jobs in Czechia this year

    Skoda wants to cut 2% of administrative jobs in Czechia this year

    Skoda wants to cut 2% of administrative jobs in Czechia this year, not through redundancies, but by not replacing retiring employees, Reuters reports.

    Skoda has 42,000 employees worldwide. Although most of them work in the Czech Republic, the company has not released details on the exact number of local employees and how many positions are administrative.

    Czech news agency CTK estimates Skoda’s number of Czech employees at 34,000.

    Employees unions announced on Thursday that the company wants to reduce ”indirect staff”, those who are not involved in production, by 5% by 2023.

  • Douglas to close around 500 of its 2,400 European stores

    Douglas to close around 500 of its 2,400 European stores

    Out of 2,400 European stores, a total of around 500 is to be closed, the majority of them in Southern Europe and about 60 of the circa 430 stores in Germany.

    Douglas has commissioned a transfer agency to support the circa 600 affected store employees in Germany (out of a total of more than 5,200) in their professional reorientation.

    Additionally, the affected employees will be offered severance payments above the industry norm.

    Douglas generated sales of 822 million euros in the 2019/20 financial year (up to the end of September), following a significant 40.6 percent increase in e-commerce.

    Due to this, Douglas has generated sales of 3.2 billion euros – just 6.4 percent short of last year’s record figure of 3.5 billion euros – despite a COVID-induced slump in its brick-and-mortar business after months-long lockdowns.

    Operating profit (Adjusted EBITDA) declined by 16.7 percent year-on-year to 292 million euros. 

  • 10 biggest startup layoffs in 2020 hit 25,500. Uber leads with 30%

    10 biggest startup layoffs in 2020 hit 25,500. Uber leads with 30%

    Data presented by Buy Shares indicates that approximately 25,500 jobs have been lost in the top ten largest startup layoffs amid the pandemic.

    The layoffs were recorded between March 2020 and January 2021.

    Cab hailing firm Uber from the transport sector leads with 7,525 layoffs accounting for 29.5% of all the highlighted job losses.

    Booking.com from the travel industry is second with 4,375 layoffs followed by e-commerce marketplace Groupon at 2,800.

    Vacation rental platform Airbnb is fourth with 1,900 layoffs followed by online tutoring platform WhiteHat Jr at 1,800.

    Insurance aggregator PaisaBazaar ranks sixth at 1,500 followed by online travel agency Agoda which has registered 1,500 layoffs.

    Online personal styling company Stitch Fix saw 1,400 workers get laid offs followed by ride-sharing firm Ola at 1,400. Stone from the financial industry had the least layoffs in the tenth spot at 1,300.

  • IBM to cut around 10,000 jobs in Europe

    IBM to cut around 10,000 jobs in Europe

    IBM plans to cut 10,000 jobs in Europe in a bid to cut costs to its IT services division before putting it up for sale, sources close to the company told Bloomberg.

    Large-scale restructuring will cover about 20% of IBM’s workforce in Europe.

    The most impacted would be subsidiaries in the UK and Germany, but restructuring is also being considered in Poland, Slovakia, Italy and Belgium.

    The hardest hit will be IBM ‘s IT services division, which handles day – to – day operations such as managing customer data centers and traditional IT support for equipment installation, operation and repair.

  • Uniqa Insurance to close 1/3 of its locations in Austria and cut 600 jobs

    Uniqa Insurance to close 1/3 of its locations in Austria and cut 600 jobs

    As part of UNIQA Insurance Group AG new ”growth strategy”, it is necessary to close a third of the sites in Austria and cut 600 jobs, Heute reports.

    Most of this job cuts are to be made in Austria, by 2022.

    However, the reduction in staff should be ”to the greatest extent possible” through natural departures and consensual contractual solutions.

    At EUR 213 million, pre-tax profit was maintained at the previous year’s level, with consolidated net income amounting to a whopping EUR 165 million. 

    Even more, over the past nine years, the number of customers has doubled to 15 million, and the dividend per share increased for the seventh year in a row.

  • French unions in Renault have agreed a 2,500 jobs cut

    French unions in Renault have agreed a 2,500 jobs cut

    CFE-CGC, the most important union from Renault, announced on Thursday that it has decided to sign an agreement that agrees a cut of 2,500 jobs in engineering and tertiary functions of the company in France, via voluntary departures, AFP reports.

    The signing of this agreement by CFE-CGC comes after a similar decision announced on Monday by Force Ouvriere, Renault’s fourth largest union.

    Given that the two unions together represent more than 50% of Renault’s employees, the agreement can be validated.

    This agreement is part of a larger plan that calls for the cut of 15,000 jobs globally, of which 4,600 in France alone.

    The 2,100 jobs that are expected to be cut in French plants are to be negotiated.

  • UK: Unemployment rate at highest level in four years

    UK: Unemployment rate at highest level in four years

    Unemployment rate in the UK reached its highest level in four years in Q3 2020 and layoffs reached a record high after the coronavirus pandemic significantly affected the market, BBC and Reuters reported.

    Between July and September 2020, the unemployment rate rose to 4.8% from 4.5%, and the number of those laid off reached a record 314,000, 181,000 more than in the second quarter of 2020.

    Companies increased the number of laid off employees, anticipating the end of the job support scheme, which was originally scheduled to end in December, but was extended until March 31, 2021.

    In Q3 2020, the number of unemployed rose by 243,000, the most significant advance since May 2009, when the United Kingdom was hit hard by the global financial crisis.

    Data shows a significant decrease, by 174,000, in the number of employees aged between 16 and 24, at a record low of 3.52 million.

  • Societe Generale to lay off 650 employees in France

    Societe Generale to lay off 650 employees in France

    Societe Generale will lay off 650 employees in France, especially in the banking investment division, the French publication Les Echos announced.

    Les Echos claims that there could be more job cuts in the retail division.

    The French banking group’s net profit rose 1% in July-September 2020 to 862 million euros ($ 1.01 billion), analysts’ estimates.

    Revenues fell 2.9% to 5.81 billion euros, but also above analysts’ forecasts. In the second quarter of 2020, Societe Generale had recorded losses of 1.26 billion euros.

    Societe Generale, one of the largest European financial services groups, has 149,000 employees in 67 countries and over 31 million customers worldwide.

  • Cable car builder Doppelmayr to cut around 200 jobs

    Cable car builder Doppelmayr to cut around 200 jobs

    Due to the corona crisis, the cable car builder Doppelmayr has to cut almost 200 jobs worldwide, Heute reports.

    At the Wolfurt site in Austria, 95 employees will lose their jobs. After several months of short-time work, the number of workers had to be adjusted, the management announced.

    For 120 temporary workers who had been hired for peak production periods, there was already no new contract offers in the summer. The company is heavily dependent on tourism.

    The past financial year was still very successful for the Doppelmayr Group with sales of EUR 872 million. This year, however, there is an industry-wide drop in sales of just over a third, explains the managing director, Thomas Pichler.

    The Doppelmayr/Garaventa Group, headquartered in Wolfurt, is the world market leader in cable car construction and operates in 50 countries. Other locations include Goldau (Switzerland), Salt Lake City (Utah, USA), Lana (Italy) or Saint-Jéréme (Quebec, Canada).

    The company employs 3.400 people worldwide.

  • Continental has approved a restructuring plan that can affect 30.000 jobs

    Continental has approved a restructuring plan that can affect 30.000 jobs

    The Supervisory Board of the German car manufacturer Continental has approved a restructuring plan that is expected to affect around 30.000 jobs worldwide.

    On September 1, Continental announced plans to cut costs by more than one billion euros a year by 2023 and expand a restructuring program that could affect up to 30.000 jobs worldwide.

    CEO of Continental, Elmar Degenhart, said the Continental plant in Aachen, western Germany, will be the tenth tire plant in Western Europe to close by 2025.

    This is because, in the last decade, Asian companies have built production capacities in Eastern Europe for about 50 million tires, even though the market has stagnated.

    ”So far we have been able to cope with these developments, but now we have reached the point where the overcapacity in Western Europe is between 13 and 15 million passenger car tires,” said Degenhart for Bloomberg.

    The group’s German operations would be severely hit, with 13.000 jobs being relocated or cut. The Continental Group has approximately 232.000 employees worldwide, of which 59.000 in Germany.

  • MAN to cut around 9.500 jobs in Austria and Germany

    MAN to cut around 9.500 jobs in Austria and Germany

    German truck and bus manufacturer MAN, controlled by Volkswagen, announced that it could lay off up to 9,500 employees in Austria and Germany as part of its cost-cutting program amid reduced sales following the coronavirus pandemic (COVID -19).

    This measure is intended to help the company achieve an 8% profitability in sales in 2023, said MAN, which belongs to the Traton group within Volkswagen.

    According to the cost reduction plan, MAN’s development and production departments will be reorganized and the production units in Steyr, Austria, Plauen and Wittlich in Germany could be closed.

    The company aims a cost cut of 1.8 billion euros ($ 2.1 billion) by 2023.