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.
United Kingdom energy supplier Npower has announced that it will reduce its workforce by 2,400 by 2018. The job losses will include directly employed staff as well as contractors. The UK operations are head-quartered in Swindon. Most of its UK employees are based in the Midlands, north east of England and in Yorkshire. It has been reported that sales and marketing roles will experience the largest cuts. The German-owned company has said that there will be no job losses at any of its UK power stations.
The company reported an annual loss of £106 million (approx. €137 million) in 2015. The company has experienced difficulties with their billing system and lost between 6 to 7 per cent of UK energy customers in 2015. This has meant Npower moved from the second to sixth largest energy supplier in the UK. Related to the problems with their billing system, in December 2015, the company was ordered to pay £26 million (approx. €33.6 million) to customers for sending out inaccurate bills and for failure to properly handle complaints.
Prior to this announcement, Npower employed 11,500 workers, of which 7,500 were directly employed. In 2014, several offices in the United Kingdom were closed with some customer service work either outsourced or offshored to India (see earlier factsheet ).
Eurofound (2016), Npower, Internal restructuring in United Kingdom, factsheet number 86672, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://dev.eurofound.europa.eu/restructuring-events/detail/86672.
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...
