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.
The multinational chemical company, BASF, has announced a global restructuring plan to cut 2600 jobs from it's global workforce. At the HQ in Ludwigshafen (Germany), the company's largest chemical complex with 39000 staff, job cuts will affect approximately 1,800 jobs. The positions affected will be 700 administrative and research positions and some other will follow the closure of several production lines (i.e. caprolactam used in engineering plastics and textile fibres).
BASF cites uncertainties due to the war in Ukraine, high raw material and energy costs in Europe, rising prices and contniuation of high interest rates into 2023 as leading causes of restrcuturing. The company's CEO has stated that the competitiveness of the European region is increasingly suffering from over-regulation as well as slow and bureaucratic approval procedures slowing market growth in Europe compared to other regions for many years. The company also attributes writedown for 2022 on the value of its Wintershall Dea energy business as part of the restructuring, stating the subsidiary will be offshored from Russia.
The company has stated there are restructuring plans in place at the plant level, however, there are no details of the restructuring plan for employees or the involvement of social partners.
Previous restructuring events for BASF have been recorded in the ERM database. In 2021, BASF announced a global restructuring plan to cut 2000 jobs (BASF-2021-WO), a plan to close their plant in Leuna, Germany (BASF-2021-DE) as well as offshore and relocate part of their plant in Ludwigshafen, Germany (BASF-2021-DEa).
Eurofound (2023), BASF, Internal restructuring in World, factsheet number 108484, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://dev.eurofound.europa.eu/restructuring-events/detail/108484.
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