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 pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim has announced a reorganisation of its activities in France and the loss of 327 jobs. The job cuts will affect the group's two French entities: 130 job cuts by Merial at Lyon (animal health, 2,300 employees) and 197 by BI France at Paris (human health, 500 employees). These job cuts represent 10% of the workforce in France. Management justifies these measures by 'an increasingly restrictive sector, particularly in human health', the need to 'resize the commercial organisation' and its long-standing intention 'to group the group's support functions in Lyon'. The plan also provides for the modification of 180 employment contracts (including 120 for BI France) for medical representatives (changes in geographical areas) and transfers to Lyon. These employees could be dismissed if they refuse their transfer.
The group bought the animal health division (Mérial) from Sanofi Group in January 2017. According to Boehringer Ingelheim, it has invested €335 million in this sector and created 250 jobs. But the end of the two-year employment guarantee period, negotiated at the time of the takeover, is coming to an end and the Lyon site, 'with its duplicates inherited from the merger, is targeted by job groupings', says a union source. Boehringer Ingelheim has 47,000 employees and a turnover of 16 €billion.
Eurofound (2018), Boehringer Ingelheim France, Internal restructuring in France, factsheet number 96189, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://dev.eurofound.europa.eu/restructuring-events/detail/96189.
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...
