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.
Hisense Gorenje Europe, the home appliance manufacturer (producer of refrigerators, kitchen stoves, washing, drying and dish-washing machines and so on), announced 176 layoffs until mid-April 2020. The affected group consists of ‘indirect production workers who are not directly involved in assembling and production and whose work is not determined by standard time’. Some employees are being transferred to equivalent positions in direct production
In Gorenje 29.2 % of the workforce consists of indirect production workers; this figure is 8.6 percentage points higher than the one found in other comparable company of the same group (Hisense Refrigerator). Layoffs will combine soft methods and redundancy procedures. Plans for a new organisational structure have been already presented to trade union and work council. The trade union claims that the number of layoffs will be even higher. At the joint meeting, the management has informed the trade union that it will not renew 237 part-time work contracts which will automatically terminate at the end of January.
After the sale of Gorenje to the Chinese corporation Hisense in 2018, and as part of the restructuring, the company was renamed ‘Hisense Gorenje Europe’ and the head office was relocated from Velenje to Ljubljana.
Eurofound (2020), Hisense Gorenje Europe, Internal restructuring in Slovenia, factsheet number 99694, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://apps.eurofound.europa.eu/restructuring-events/detail/99694.