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 64.19 - Other monetary intermediation
354 jobs Number of planned job losses
Announcement Date
11 July 2019
Employment effect (start)
1 October 2019
Foreseen end date
Description
Banque Populaire Grand Ouest, resuloting from the merger among Banque Populaire de l'Ouest, Banque Populaire Atlantique, and Crédit Maritime, the bank should close 86 to 96 branches in a territory that extends from the Normandy region to the Pays de la Loire region. This restructuring plan should be accompanied by 354 job cuts in 12 departments. The reasons given are insufficient profitability and productivity and rapidly changing consumption patterns of banking services. A social plan that ends at the end of the year has already resulted in the loss of 206 jobs.
The trade union representatives stated that employees consider this project unnecessarily destructive of local jobs, in contradiction with the bank's values. Furthermore, customers will be directly impacted by the closure of local branches and by changes in opening hours.
Eurofound (2019), Banque Populaire Grand Ouest, Merger/Acquisition in France, factsheet number 98140, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/98140.
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.
