Restructuring events
European Restructuring Monitor (ERM)
The restructuring events database contains factsheets with data on large-scale restructuring events reported in the principal national media and company websites in each EU Member State. This database was created in 2002.
Space launchers manufacturer ArianeGroup, announced at a works council meeting that it will cut 600 of its 7,500 jobs in France and Germany through voluntary departures to be phased in throughout 2022. According to the trade unions, all jobs are affected, except for workshop staff.
In France, the number of net job losses, taking into account the natural departures that take place each year (about 350 natural departures each year) and the flow of recruitment that the company will maintain, will reach between 150 to 200 job cuts in 2022. However, the distribution of the redundancies between the French and German workforces is not known, nor are the exact details of the redundancy plan. A new works council will be convened on 8 October to determine the outlines. According to the management, no site is threatened. The production of the Vinci engine will be transferred from France to Germany.
The manufacturer, which is due to launch the new version of Ariane 6 next year, is facing fierce competition from SpaceX and its reusable launchers. The daily Les Echos stresses that the announced plan could only be the beginning, as the possibility of many more cuts, which could threaten up to 2,500 jobs, has already been circulated. An option denied by the ArianeGroup management, which says it has never considered a plan of this magnitude.
The group also confirmed the implementation of one of the conditions set by Germany for the conclusion of an agreement with France to ensure the group a minimum order for the period 2025-2027: that of transferring the production of the engine that will equip the upper stage of Ariane 6, from the French site of Vernon to another ArianeGroup site in Germany.
ArianeGroup was born in 2016 from the merger between Safran and Airbus. The group has already carried out a reorganisation with the announcement of 2,300 job cuts in 2018.
Update 8 October 2021: at a central work council meeting (CSE) on 8 October, the management has announced 250 job cuts from a total of the 3,500 employees working in the plants of Haillan and Saint-Médard-en-Jalles, both located in the department of Gironde. Negotiations between management and trade unions have started on 11 October, to mitigate impacts of the reorganisation.
Eurofound (2021), ArianeGroup, Internal restructuring in France, factsheet number 105295, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://apps.eurofound.europa.eu/restructuring-events/detail/105295.
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