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.
Financial Services Financial And Insurance Activities Financial Service Activities, Except Insurance And Pension Funding 64.9 - Other financial service activities, except insurance and pension funding
European Globalisation Fund (EGF)
Year: 2018, Case number: 1
2,475 - 2,875 jobs Number of planned job losses
Announcement Date
9 September 2016
Employment effect (start)
1 January 2017
Foreseen end date
31 December 2020
Description
The Dutch bank ABN Amro intends to decrease its workforce by 975 persons to 1,375 full time equivalents between 2017 and 2020. It had announced large scale job cuts in August 2016 but did not announce exact figures. On 12 September 2016 the Dutch national news agency published an internal document dated 9 September 2016 which includes the figures. The job cuts are motivated by similar developments in the Dutch banking sector and the desire to invest more in the innovation and digitalisation of services and in "growth initiatives", and will touch on both directly employed staff and external (agency and contractor) staff mainly in support services such as catering, communications and personnel services, but also in risk and financial affairs. The job cuts will be achieved as much as possible through natural attrition and decreasing the number of external staff, but forced redundancies are not excluded. Trade union official Carla Kiburg of the largest Dutch trade union FNV expressed that the union's suspicions of pending mass reductions had been confirmed at the initial announcement in August 2016. She stated that it is why the FNV had negotiated an extension of the social plan which was negotiated for the previous round of dismissals between 2015 and 2017, and a new social plan for the three following years. ABN Amro was nationalised during the crisis in 2008 and listed on the stock market since 2015. It has activities across Europe, Asia, the US and to a more limited extent in the rest of the world.
Updated, 9/12/2016: On 16 November 2016 yet another round of dismissals was announced reducing an additional 1,500 full time jobs across all levels and departments, to be completed in 2020. This is deemed necessary, despite good performance in recent years, because the growth in revenues has dropped and investments are needed in further digitalisation of services and in activities abroad, making cost cuts necessary. The unions are greatly concerned about the continuing and far-reaching restructuring at ABN Amro and in the banking sector as a whole, speaking of a "relay race" between banks announcing restructuring after restructuring, causing great uncertainty among employees in the sector.
Eurofound (2016), ABN Amro, Internal restructuring in Netherlands, factsheet number 88601, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/88601.
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.
