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 telecom company Telenor is restructuring its organisation in Norway, planning cuts that will affect at least 180 employees. The company has stated that it needs to adjust its organisation in order to 'meet the challenges of the digital shift' with rapidly changing markets and customer behaviour. The restructuring will affect 5 of the 24 offices in Norway:
Severance packages will be based on seniority. The company aims to complete the restructuring by March 2017. Telenor is a publicly traded company, of which the Norwegian state owns 54%.
Telenor states that the changes are needed to respond to the growing digitisation of society and the economy. Union representatives from the Electrician and IT workers union (EL & IT Forbundet) and Negotia have defined the restructuring as cynical given that the company has shown solid financial results, and accuse the management of purposefully cutting senior and long-time employees with established rights and benefits in order to replace them with consultants and workers hired through temporary agencies, in other locations. Telenor has denied the use of this strategy, stating that the restructuring is necessary to adapt to changing customer behaviour and that the use of temporary agencies/external consultants is a temporary solution during the restructuring period. The company has experienced a sharp downturn in customers using landline phones. It has invested heavily in fiber optics and mobile infrastructure. Telenor has previously undertaken efforts to cut costs in Norway, including a restructuring in 2014.
Eurofound (2016), Telenor, Internal restructuring in Norway, factsheet number 88984, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://dev.eurofound.europa.eu/restructuring-events/detail/88984.
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