In 2020, El Corte Inglés lost first place as the main employer company in Spain (Mercadona surpassed it with 93,300 workers, compared to 80,814 employees of the department store group) within a business reorganization process that has led it to slim down its workforce more than 19% in ten years –see graph–. In 2021, El Corte Inglés’ own workforce dropped to 79,804 workers and now, the company chaired by Marta Álvarez is once again immersed in a negotiation with the unions to cut staff and transfer office employees to stores. The legal deadline to reach an agreement expires next week and meetings are underway.

The company has proposed the incentivized leave of 590 people over 59 years of age, to whom it offers a payment of between 57% and 60% of the fixed salary depending on age. To this remuneration it would be necessary to add, as is clear from the proposal, other variable payments, in the form of bonuses or via species. Once the age of 63 is reached, these payments would be extinguished. These departures occur after the department stores agreed in 2021 to the first ERE in its history for 3,292 people – more than 4,000 employees joined it voluntarily. The layoffs ended up affecting 3.3% of the workforce.

Sources from the works council explain, however, that the point of concern is the “substantial modification” of the working conditions and geographical mobility to which the personnel of the central and regional administrative services that the company proposes to transfer to the stores are exposed. . The plan would affect 2,324 workers, although the 590 incentivized casualties would be deducted from this figure if they are all covered.

According to calculations by the unions, 60% of the affected workers are in Madrid and the rest in other areas of Spain. This newspaper has tried to confirm these data with the company, without success. “In the workforce there is concern because this implies a strong change in their working conditions,” union sources explain. Those possibly affected would change functions, going from performing an administrative job to a commercial one, as a salesperson.

They would also see their schedules modified, since the working hours in offices and department stores are different and involve working on Saturdays or some holidays. Regarding the salary, from the unions they comment that at first they should maintain their salary, although some bonuses could be compromised. It all depends on the negotiation that is now open.

The group has explained that in this way it tries to maintain employment, since it no longer requires so many personnel in the central services due to the improvements in the management processes that it has applied in recent months. The process is added, yes, to the progressive reduction of its workforce in recent years. A process that has gone hand in hand with the reduction of its network of establishments. In total, it has shed fifteen stores between 2021 and 2022 as part of the reorganization plan for its commercial network, some of them emblematic. Among them, the closure of the Francesc Macià shopping center and the Portal de l’Àngel shopping center in Barcelona last October, whose range of brands had recently been renewed, stand out. The company billed a total of 12,507 million euros in 2021, 21.9% more than in 2020 but still far from the 15,083 million pre-pandemic.