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 American pharmaceutical group Lilly has announced a reorganisation plan for its site at Fegersheim, near Strasbourg (Bas-Rhin). The site will benefit from a €100 million investment plan but the company will also launch a voluntary departure plan for 250 employees out of a total workforce of 1,400 employees. The group aims to reduce production costs and technological innovation. The job cuts will take place until 2020, through a procedure known as the collective conventional termination of contract (rupture conventionnelle collective) created in the framework of the labour law reform of 2017 (EurWork, France: Government unveils plans to reform labour laws) to secure the previous instrument of voluntary redundancy schemes (plans de depart volontaire), which were intensively used but had no legal basis.
The job cuts will result from non-replacement of retiring employees and early retirement in the framework of the collective conventional termination. The management expects not to have to implement forced dismissals. The management also indicates that important training will be conducted as part of the 'development and adaptation of skills to support technological change'. In addition, approximately 25 recruitments are expected to be made 'to acquire the new skills necessary for the transformation of the site'. Previous job cuts took place in 2015 (158 job cuts on national level) and in 2010 (250 job cuts at Fegersheim on a total of 2,421 employees).
Eurofound (2019), Lilly France, Internal restructuring in France, factsheet number 96336, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://apps.eurofound.europa.eu/restructuring-events/detail/96336.