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.
US multinational conglomerate General Electric has announced plans to shift up to 500 jobs to Europe and China from the US. The decision concerns employees in General Electric's turbine manufacturing division. GE plans to move 100 jobs associated with the assembly of gas turbines from Houston, Texas, to Hungary and China by 2016. A further 400 jobs associated with the manufacture of gas turbines will be created in Belfort, France rather than at GE sites in South Carolina, Maine and New York if the company wins pending deals. GE already has employees in all three locations. No US facilities will close, according to GE.
The decision comes in response to the lapse of the charter of the US Export-Import Bank, the official export credit agency of the United States, on 30th June. There is political uncertainty as to whether the US Congress will renew the Bank's charter this year. General Electric has argued that backing from an export credit agency is a precondition for success on several major international projects it is currently bidding for. According to media sources, about 80 per cent of GE's turbines are exported to countries where export credit agency funding is required. Many such agencies require beneficiaries to have significant operations in the country where the agency is based, which is the reason for the relocation of jobs.
GE could benefit from access to export credit agencies in Hungary and China. In France, it has already obtained assurances from the French export credit agency, Coface, that the agency will provide backing for a substantial portion of the $11 billion worth of international power projects that General Electric is bidding on.
The conglomerate has approximately 300,000 employees overall.
Eurofound (2015), General Electric, Business expansion in World, factsheet number 84716, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://dev.eurofound.europa.eu/restructuring-events/detail/84716.
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