Once again the answer to bad economic results of a multinational is a plan to cut jobs. In this case, it is the French company Alstom that announced yesterday the elimination of 1,500 jobs from a workforce of 80,000 workers worldwide. Since the beginning of the year, other large multinationals such as BT, Vodafone, Ericsson and Philips have announced a global cut of more than 100,000 jobs.
Alstom has not given details about the geographical impact and has only specified that “it will involve the rationalization of positions in administrative functions worldwide”. It is expected, therefore, that it will not affect the factories.
Union sources explained yesterday, citing the European Works Council, that the adjustments will focus on the duplication of jobs resulting from the merger of Alstom with Bombardier. That is why the same sources believe that the cut will not have an effect at the Santa Perpètua de Mogoda plant, where around 1,200 people work.
In the rest of Spain, the company employs around 1,600 more employees. The same union sources pointed out that in Madrid there are indeed more administrative activities that could be affected.
Sources from Alstom in Spain, for their part, limited themselves to repeating that “it is still too early to talk about affects in specific countries or centers”.
The cut comes when the center of Santa Perpètua de Mogoda has reached the maximum level of employed people, because the workload has increased. Union sources recalled that most of this activity is for the local market, such as orders for the Barcelona tramway.
The measures planned by the French infrastructure and transport group aim to reduce leverage and strengthen the company’s balance sheet. In addition to the redundancies, assets are planned to be sold and the possibility of carrying out a capital increase is being studied.
Yesterday, the company presented the accounts for the first half of the fiscal year, in which it registered a net attributable profit of one million euros, after the losses of 21 million recorded a year earlier. Sales increased by 4.9%, up to 8,443 million.
Henri Poupart-Lafarge, chairman of the board of directors and CEO of Alstom, admitted that, while demand remains sustained, commercial performance was weak, reports Europa Press. The executive announced “a comprehensive action plan” to maintain the debt rating within the investment grade and ensure medium-term objectives. In order to maintain a solid and sustainable investment grade rating, Alstom will strengthen the group’s balance sheet and propose to reduce net debt by 2,000 million euros by March 2025.
