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.
US multinational conglomerate General Electric has announced plans to cut 1,700 jobs in Germany. In total, the company wants to cut 6,500 jobs across Europe. According to the management, job cuts are due to internal restructuring with the company wanting to become more competitive. Moreover, generation of electricity with gas and steam turbines is significantly decreasing across Europe. Most affected are employees in Mannheim due to the acquisition of Alstom, a french global power and engineering firm. Other dismissals will take place in Stuttgart and Wiesbaden. The plant in Bexbach faces the threat of closure.
The company is currently negotiatingwith employee representatives about the new structure. Headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, General Electric employs around 300,000 employees in more than 100 countries worldwide.
Update:
US multinational conglomerate General Electric (GE) has announced plans to cut 1,100 jobs in Mannheim and Bexbach. The first announcement has been made in January 2016 (General Electric, 2016) but due to many protests and a long conflict between the works’ council, the Metalworkers’ Union and the GE management the exact implementation remained unclear. Finally on 7 February 2017 an agreement over a social plan has been published.
The German Metalworkers’ Union organised 10 protests in 2016 and even tried to find buyers for the affected parts of the company and went to the labour court. At the end, the labour court instated a conciliation board. At the site in Mannheim, 700 out of 1,800 employees remain unaffected by the job cuts. These are position in the service and development department. However, the manufacturing of gas- and steam turbines will be closed completely.
The site in Bexbach will also be closed completely, 150 employees are affected with 300 employees having agreed to partial retirement. Furthermore, there will be three transfer agencies as well as severance payments which will be calculated according to the years of employment. The first transfer agency will start in April and the second one in July 2017, both of them will run for 18 months. The third transfer agency will start at the beginning of 2018 and last for 12 months. However, several employees already quit in the meantime during the conflict. The transfer companies offer further qualifications and 85% of the previous net salaries. General Electric will pay a total of €500 million for these measures.
In 2016 General Electric created 200 research jobs in Germany (General Electric, 2016). Headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, General Electric employs around 11,000 employees across more than 50 sites in Germany.
Eurofound (2016), General Electric, Merger/Acquisition in Germany, factsheet number 86145, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://apps.eurofound.europa.eu/restructuring-events/detail/86145.
Eurofound’s ERM restructuring legislation database offers an overview of key restructuring-related regulations in the EU Member States and Norway. Its content is continuously updated to reflect any changes made by national legislators in response to, for instance, policy shifts, legal...
Can Europe still achieve its ambitions for battery manufacturing? To answer this, the article looks at data from Eurofound’s European Restructuring Monitor and explores what recent large-scale restructuring events reveal about the state of play in the EU battery sector.
This working paper offers a comprehensive methodological overview of the European Restructuring Monitor (ERM) databases. Even though the methodology has not changed over time, new categories have been added, and the way it has been used by researchers and policymakers...
This Eurofound research paper explores key trends in restructuring in recent years, highlighting the companies that announced the largest job losses and job gains in the EU. It builds on an analysis of company announcements recorded in Eurofound’s European Restructuring...
In 2023, thousands of workers in big tech lost their jobs. Meta, Amazon, Google, Apple, Microsoft and Salesforce had been considered to offer good and secure jobs up to this point. Giants of the information and communication technology (ICT) sector,...
In 2024, the automotive sector in the EU came to the fore in public and policy discussions. The focus was on the slowdown in electric vehicle (EV) sales, rising global competition, belated investments in new technologies, and the potential closure...
