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.
Against the background of dropping numbers of fixed-network telephony users, the partially state-owned Telekom Austria decided – at a supervisory board meeting held on 10 November 2008 – to cut its workforce in its fixed-network telephony segment by 1,250 employees by the end of 2009. Moreover, up to 2011, additional 1,500 workers are planned to be made redundant. For the 1,250 employees affected in a first phase, management and the works council agreed on a social plan, providing for further training measures and job placement activities. Initially, management expected only about 400 of the affected 1,250 employees to accept the social plan (and thus the dismissal). However, staff reduction at Telekom Austria was going at a quicker pace than expected, said the company's CEO Hannes Ametsreiter on 23 October 2009 in Vienna. By this day, 520 employees decided to leave. Since most of the Telekom Austria staff are public-service employees, which enjoy protection against dismissal, they cannot be fired like private-law employees. Therefore, the majority of these employees will be discharged from work obligations but will continue to be paid (at a slightly lower pay level). The responsible trade union and the company’s works council have repeatedly protested against these measures. Currently, the Telekom Austria employs some 11,000 workers in Austria, most of them still in the fixed-network business segment.
Detailes on response of Telekom Austria employees to job reductions are available on the European Industrial Relations Observatory (EIRO).
Eurofound (2009), Telekom Austria, Internal restructuring in Austria, factsheet number 66848, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://dev.eurofound.europa.eu/restructuring-events/detail/66848.
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...
The more employee monitoring resembles surveillance – with its systematic, continuous and detailed tracking of employees' activities, behaviours or communications – the greater the potential for infringement of both privacy and data protection rights. Although the EU General Data Protection...
Since 2013, Eurofound's ERM database on restructuring-related legislation has been documenting regulatory developments in the Member States of the European Union and Norway which are explicitly or implicitly linked to anticipating and managing change. The most recent update to the...
