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.
Multi-national insurance company Aviva, headquartered in London, has recently announced job cuts affecting around 1500 workers in the UK and Ireland. The job losses have been announced in two separate statements.
In October, Aviva released a statement saying that up to 950 jobs could be lost in Ireland (see here), as a result of a merger between Aviva UK and Aviva Ireland, forming a new UK and Ireland region. 180 of these jobs will come from Aviva Europe, and 770 from Aviva Ireland.
Further job cuts in the UK are now planned due to the expiry of a joint venture with the Royal Bank of Scotland, which had formerly required an administration centre in Bristol. Closure of the centre will result in the loss of 384 jobs. Staff had been informed that closure was a possibility in August 2010 - at this stage, a seven-year distribution deal was agreed to determine how the business area covered by the joint venture would be dealt with.
The timescales for the cuts are not entirely clear. While one source (Reuters) states that the cuts in the UK will occur over the next year, the FT Adviser says that the job losses will be discussed over the next two years. The cuts in Ireland are expected to occur over the next two years.
Aviva stated that it would redeploy jobs wherever possible, but a spokesman for the Unite union said that the cuts in the UK and Ireland were 'unacceptable'. In the same statement, the Unite spokesman reported that cuts announced recently by Aviva total more than 1500, slightly more than the total of the 950 and 384 specified above.
Eurofound (2011), Aviva, Internal restructuring in European Union, factsheet number 72733, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://dev.eurofound.europa.eu/restructuring-events/detail/72733.
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