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 management of the American group General Electric (GE) has announced 1,044 job cuts in its gas turbine manufacturing and support functions. The job cuts mainly concern the Belfort and Bourogne sites. The gas turbine division will lose 792 of the 1,800 positions in Belfort and Bourogne, while 252 jobs will be lost in the administrative services, some of them at the headquarters at Boulogne-Billancourt (Haut-de-Seine). The reorganisation is based on two reasons: first, GE's power generation division saw its revenues decline by 22% in 2018 worldwide, with an operating loss of USD 1 billion (€ 896,600,000). Secondly, the world market for gas-fired power plants has shrunk and orders have diminished. In 2008, 100 gas turbines were leaving the Belfort site, compared to only 29 in 2018.
These job cuts affect the activities acquired by GE from Alstom in 1999. They do not concern those acquired in 2015, which General Electric has undertaken to protect from any workforce reduction for three years. However, since GE took over Alstom Energie, it announced 765 job cuts in January 2016 while it announced 1,000 job creation before 2019. But, as GE failed to create any position in this period, a €50 million financial contribution has to be paid to the French State. The money will be used to reindustrialise the geographical areas hit by job cuts and could also be used to support dismissed employees. GE announced 470 job cuts in January 2019, after the expiry of the 'three years of employment protection' deadline.
Eurofound (2019), General Electric, Internal restructuring in France, factsheet number 97794, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://dev.eurofound.europa.eu/restructuring-events/detail/97794.
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