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.
South West; Dorset and Somerset; Bournemouth and Poole
Location of affected unit(s)
Poole
Sector
Manufacturing Manufacture, Printing And Reproduction Of Recorded Media Printing And Reproduction Of Recorded Media 18.12 - Other printing
179 jobs Number of planned job losses
Announcement Date
7 November 2019
Employment effect (start)
1 December 2020
Foreseen end date
Description
Walstead, a UK based offset printing group, has announced the closure of Walstead Southernprint, which will lead to 179 job losses in Poole, England, in 2020. After the closure, some of the activities of the smallest unit of the company are expected to be relocated to the bigger branches in Roche, Bicester and Peterborough. The company has not announced any redundancy plan yet, as the consultations are still ongoing. The management explained that the decision was motivated by a major decrease in print media demand.
The Unite union, which represents some of the affected workers, has said that they would negotiate with the management to explore how the plant could be saved.
The Walstead Group employs 3,500 people in the UK and five other EU member states and specialises in printing magazines, catalogues and brochures as well as flyers and leaflets.
Eurofound (2019), Walstead Southernprint, Closure in United Kingdom, factsheet number 99242, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/99242.
Digitisation and automation technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), can affect working conditions in a variety of ways and their use in the workplace raises a host of new ethical concerns.
The retail banking sector is fertile ground for studying the impacts of digitalisation on work and employment. Financial services are increasingly provided online, without the intermediary of customer-facing institutions.
European labour markets have recovered strongly from COVID-19. By the end of 2021, little more than 18 months after the start of the pandemic, employment rates in the EU were almost at pre-crisis levels.
