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.
Vodafone España, the Spanish subsidiary of the British multinational telecommunications conglomerate, has announced to workers representatives a collective dismissal plan that will affect 509 workers. This adjustment plan will also involve the closure of Vodafone's 34 shops in Spain, where 237 employees work. Therefore, this plan will mainly affect commercial occupations. The company has called the unions for a month-long consultation period starting at the end of September.
The company justifies the decision based on economic, productive, and organizational causes. The restructuring is incentivized by the need to improve its operational performance by accelerating its digital transformation strategy. The objective is to reduce drastically the physical presence of the Spanish subsidiary to enhance the digital customer care and the digitalization of its activities.
Vodafone already implemented a dismissal plan in 2019 that affected around 1,000 persons.
Update 27/10/2021: Vodafone and the unions have signed the agreement for the collective redundancy plan that will finally affect 442 employees (10% of the workforce), 15% less than the initial announcement. The agreement is similar to the 2019 restructuring process: voluntary leaves and compensation of 50 days per year worked with a maximum of 33 monthly payments, along with a linear bonus of €6,000 for workers earning less than €30,000 gross. The agreement also counts with early retirements for those older than 54. The agreement also has a relocation plan for the 230 workers at Vodafone's shops that the company plans to outsource to work in the supplier company.
Eurofound (2021), Vodafone, Internal restructuring in Spain, factsheet number 105301, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://dev.eurofound.europa.eu/restructuring-events/detail/105301.
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