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 German sugar confectionery firm Haribo has announced 100 job cuts by the end of 2018 in its sites of Marseille (Bouches-du-Rhône) and Uzès (Gard). As it currently employs 750 people in the country, this will be equivalent to a reduction of around 15% of its workforce. According to the management, the negotiation with trade unions on the social plan were critical as the company is in a very good financial situation. Haribo France has seen its turnover doubled in ten years to reach €250 million in 2016 and its two sites produces 52,000 tonnes of candies per year, which is insufficient for the French market where Haribo sells 75,000 tonnes per year, with product coming from Germany, Spain, Hungary or Austria.
According to Les Echos, Haribo has stopped its investments in France six or seven years ago. The decision to freeze production capacity is related to the high labour costs in France. To reduce the workforce, the company will use non replacement of short-term employment contract, of employees leaving to retirement or early-retirement, and open a voluntary departure plan, to avoid forced dismissals. According to the management, the challenge with the restructuring plan was to keep opened the Haribo's two factories in Marseille and Uzès. Without the restructuring plan that has been approved by the workers through a vote (90% of participants, 72% approves the plan in Uzès and 62% in Marseille, despite the union CGT appeal to boycott the vote), the management would have to close one of the site before 2020.
Otherwise, Haribo which employs 4,000 people worldwide, is opening a new production site in Germany in July 2017 with 700 to 800 employees and in the United States by 2020 with the recruitment on 400 employees.
Eurofound (2017), Haribo Ricqles Zan, Internal restructuring in France, factsheet number 90771, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://dev.eurofound.europa.eu/restructuring-events/detail/90771.
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...
