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.
Manufacturing Manufacture Of Chemicals And Pharamceuticals Manufacture Of Basic Pharmaceutical Products And Pharmaceutical Preparations 21 - Manufacture of basic pharmaceutical products and pharmaceutical preparations
700 jobs Number of planned job losses
Announcement Date
20 February 2007
Employment effect (start)
1 February 2007
Foreseen end date
28 February 2010
Description
Drugs giant AstraZeneca is to cut more than a quarter of the workforce at one of its UK plants. A total of 700 jobs will go over the next three years at the company's plant in Macclesfield, Cheshire, which employs 2,500 workers. AstraZeneca's staff cuts are part of an efficiency drive which will lead to 3,000 jobs losses worldwide by 2010. The group is facing competition from rivals making cheaper generic versions of its drugs once patents expire. Despite the job losses, a company spokesman said the Macclesfield site was integral to the company's global supply chain and would remain one of its largest worldwide supply sites. AstraZeneca also announced it would be investing 63.5 million GBP in a new research and development laboratory, which it hopes to open in 2009. Unions expressed surprise at the scale of the job losses, with Amicus and the GMB vowing to try to reduce the number of planned redundancies.
Sources
20 February 2007: BBC Website
Citation
Eurofound (2007), Astra Zeneca, Internal restructuring in United Kingdom, factsheet number 64982, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/64982.
Digitisation and automation technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), can affect working conditions in a variety of ways and their use in the workplace raises a host of new ethical concerns.
The retail banking sector is fertile ground for studying the impacts of digitalisation on work and employment. Financial services are increasingly provided online, without the intermediary of customer-facing institutions.
European labour markets have recovered strongly from COVID-19. By the end of 2021, little more than 18 months after the start of the pandemic, employment rates in the EU were almost at pre-crisis levels.
