The management of Roca Sanitario has agreed with the workers’ representatives on an agreement for the employment regulation file (ERE) at its Gavà and Viladencans factory that provides for the departure via early retirement of 168 workers. The pact sets the minimum age for early retirement at 53 years. Company sources assured that joining the plan is voluntary.
Roca explained that “once the agreement is ratified by the center’s staff in the coming days, an individual communication plan will begin so that interested people can voluntarily adhere to early retirement.”
The plant will continue with its industrial activity and plans will be launched to consolidate the Catalan factory “as a global reference center, at the forefront of technological innovation and sustainability in bathroom products.”
The adjustment affects one in four jobs. The plant is mainly dedicated to the manufacture of porcelain and taps, along with some minor sections of composite products and assembly of bathroom furniture and screens. The impact will focus precisely on those sections of screens, furniture and composite products.
Roca Sanitario justified the measure in “the gradual decline in sales in recent years, as well as the negative forecast of the market in the Eurozone as a whole.”
Despite the good evolution of the labor market in Catalonia, the ERE (Employment Regulation File) were skyrocketing in the first semester with a growth of 59% in the first six months of the year. Data for the January-June period show that a total of 3,399 people lost their jobs in a collective dismissal process compared to 2,140 in the same period in 2022.
The figure for the first six months of 2023 is higher than that recorded in the whole of 2017 or 2018. And it is on track to exceed those of last year, when it was 5,205 employees.
In the first part of the year, the collective employment adjustments of technology companies such as Glovo, Wallbox, GI Group 2016 or the Facebook subcontractor in Barcelona have stood out.
