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Restructuring

Restructuring is a term used to describe a wide range of activities which lead to the reorganisation of an enterprise. Restructuring can have serious consequences for the workforce as far as levels of employment and terms and conditions of employment offered to workers are concerned.

Topic

Recent updates

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Regulatory responses to algorithmic management in the EU

Since 2013, Eurofound's ERM database on restructuring-related legislation has been documenting regulatory developments in the Member States of the European Union and Norway. The most recent update to the database...

Article

Eurofound research

Restructuring at regional level

Eurofound’s European Jobs Monitor (EJM) monitors structural change in European labour markets, analysing where jobs are being lost and where they are being created. It analyses shifts in the employment structure in terms of occupation and sector, both at Member State and regional level. Recent analysis takes the region rather than the Member States as the main unit of analysis. It shows that a growth of within-country inequality often has a strong regional dimension and places a focus on regionally unbalanced growth.

 

Complementing this research, since 2002 the European Restructuring Monitor (ERM) has been monitoring the employment impact of large-scale restructuring events in Europe. Restructuring events include company reorganisation, outsourcing, business closure, downsizing or expansion, mergers & acquisitions, relocation, offshoring and reshoring. The ERM also examines the impact on working conditions. 

 

The ERM restructuring support instruments database provides information on more than 300 measures implemented in the Member States of the EU and Norway. National governments, employers’ organisations and trade unions are among the key bodies providing support measures for companies that are restructuring, as well as for the employees affected. This database can be used to search for EU, domestic, regional and local level support measures. 

Key outputs

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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. Many...

26 September 2022
Publication
Research report
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This report has a dual focus. First, it reviews recent restructuring activity in the EU, from January 2019 up to and including the first impacts of the COVID-19 crisis. The...

10 November 2020
Publication
Research report
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The pilot project The Future of Manufacturing in Europe is an explorative and future-oriented study. It explores the future adoption of some key game-changing technologies and how this adoption can...

10 April 2019
Publication
Research report

EU context

The EU institutions jointly proclaimed the European Pillar of Social Rights in November 2017, the principles of which are structured around three categories: equal opportunities and access to the labour market; fair working conditions; and social protection and inclusion. In the area of social dialogue and involvement of workers, the Pillar highlights that workers or their representatives have the right to be informed and consulted in good time on matters relevant to them, in particular on the transfer, restructuring and merger of undertakings and on collective redundancies.

 

European Industrial Relations Dictionary 

Eurofound expert(s)

John Hurley

John Hurley is a senior research manager in the Employment unit at Eurofound. He took up the role of research manager in February 2012. He is responsible for the European...

Senior research manager,
Employment research unit
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Chiara Litardi is a research officer in the Employment unit at Eurofound. She works on topics related to restructuring, employment and on upward convergence. She was previously...

Research officer,
Employment research unit
Publications results (131)

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. Many banks in the sector have been undergoing serial restructuring since the g

26 September 2022

This report has a dual focus. First, it reviews recent restructuring activity in the EU, from January 2019 up to and including the first impacts of the COVID-19 crisis. The second part presents an analysis of transnational restructuring cases – those that affect workers in more than one country. The

10 November 2020

Eurofound’s European Restructuring Monitor (ERM) is a unique EU-wide dataset on larger-scale restructuring events, which monitors the announced employment effects of restructuring in the EU28 and Norway. Using reports from selected media titles, the ERM is updated on a daily basis. This report gives

16 May 2019

The pilot project The Future of Manufacturing in Europe is an explorative and future-oriented study. It explores the future adoption of some key game-changing technologies and how this adoption can be promoted, even regionally. The analysis of implications for working life focuses primarily on tasks

10 April 2019

Reshoring – namely the relocation of value chain activities back to the home country or its nearby region – has attracted an increasing interest both among scholars and policymakers. The European Reshoring Monitor is a collaborative project between Eurofound and a consortium of Italian universities

01 April 2019

This report explores the motivations, opportunities and challenges of born globals and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in integrating and managing their global value chains (GVCs). The study also investigates the role of selected policy measures in supporting SME internationalisation, incl

14 December 2018

Using data from the sixth European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS), carried out in 2015, the ERM report 2018 examines how workplace factors may influence the relationship between restructuring (with job losses) and the outcomes for employees. It also reviews policy and academic research on good

25 October 2018

The 2016 annual report from the European Restructuring Monitor (ERM) provides evidence of the employment impact of recent restructuring activity in Europe based on the European Union Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS) and the ERM events database. The thematic part of this year’s report centres on trends

01 February 2017

In the 1990s, Alan Greenspan talked of ‘irrational exuberance’ in the stock markets. Unfounded optimism had driven share prices up to values that no rational analysis of company or country performance could justify. At the end of 2016, the Financial Times marked the end of the year by talking of

26 January 2017

The IMF, in its October World economic outlook, has revised forecasts for global growth downwards to 3.1% in 2016. Sub-par growth in the developed world economies risks perpetuating itself, according to the Fund.

27 October 2016

Online resources results (238)

Trade unions reject austerity measures in public sector

Due to budget constraints, the Romanian government (Guvernul României [1]) issued, on the last day of 2008, an emergency decree forbidding the right to accumulated pension earnings and salaries from public funds. The measure triggered protests by both sectoral and national trade union confederations

Controversy over job retention plan at RBC Dexia

In September 2009, the management of RBC Dexia [1] – a services company for institutional investors owned by Dexia [2] and Royal Bank of Canada (RBC [3]) – announced the relocation of its accounts department to Malaysia. At the time of the reorganisation, 110 jobs in Luxembourg were under threat

Social dialogue on postal liberalisation hits dead end

Directive 2008/06/EC [1] amending Directive 97/67/EC with regard to the full accomplishment of the internal market of Community postal services was adopted on 20 February 2008. It envisages the complete liberalisation of the postal services market by 31 December 2010 at the latest. However, 11

One in five companies consider moving to countries with cheaper labour

In August 2009, the daily economic newspaper /Hospodářské Noviny/ published a long list of companies in the Czech Republic that have moved all or part of their production abroad, especially to Asia, because of lower labour costs. The listed names include traditional Czech brands such as: the pencils

Article

Final stage on way to liberalisation of Belgian Post

Belgian Post (De Post/La Poste [1]) is, in terms of employment, the country’s biggest company, employing about 35,000 people. For a number of years, Belgian Post has been adapting its internal structures in preparation for the future liberalisation of the European postal services market. For example

Article

Czech Airlines struggles to survive economic crisis

The Czech Republic’s national airline company, Czech Airlines (České aerolinie, ČSA [1]), is currently facing an economic crisis, recording a loss of CZK 1.8 billion (about €68.5 million as at 12 January 2010) in the first quarter of 2009 and with losses exceeding CZK 2 billion (€76 million)

Article

Crisis in automotive sector puts industrial relations under strain

The automotive sector is an important part of employment and total production in Swedish industry, representing 11% of the total manufacturing industry with about 140,000 employees at major manufacturers such as Saab, Scania, the Volvo Group and Volvo Cars.

Article

Managing change in EU cross-border mergers and acquisitions

/The European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions organised a company network seminar on November 29–30, 2007, hosted by Santander at its corporate headquarters in Madrid, Spain. In intensive discussions over the two days, 32 representatives from companies, trade unions

Article

Managing large-scale restructuring: Michelin Stoke-on-Trent

/Tyre production is not an industry traditionally associated with the Stoke-on-Trent industrial area of the West Midlands in the United Kingdom. However, following the arrival of the French-based tyre manufacturer Michelin in the late 1920s, the company soon became one of the region's major

Article

Managing large-scale restructuring: Barclays

/Increasing competition in the financial services sector means that many banks are at risk of closure or are being forced to merge with other financial institutions. One of the leading financial services companies in the world, Barclays has managed to stay competitive in a difficult market, due to


Blogs results (6)
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It is less than four weeks since the first large European Coronavirus-related company bankruptcy (Flybe, a British regional airline, on 5 March), but it is clear already that the pandemic is going to disrupt labour markets as seriously as the global financial crisis, if not more so. A large majority

2 April 2020
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Trade unions in many EU Member States face the issue of declining membership. This is a fundamental challenge for organised labour, but it is premature to speak about the redundancy unions: when it comes to important decisions affecting the workplace, restructuring being one, trade unions remain a

20 November 2019
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Company restructuring may hit the headlines less in good times, but it remains a central experience in the working life of many. According to the most recent European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS) data, just under one in three (30%) employees in the EU reported that restructuring had taken place

2 May 2019
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Over the past four years a special project delegated to Eurofound has looked in detail at ongoing changes in manufacturing on a global scale, analysed how the industry will change further in the future, and assessed what the impacts will be for Europe. Looking at everything from changes in tasks for

9 April 2019
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There are fears that thousands of jobs could be lost in financial services following the UK’s exit from the European Union. This blog piece explores some of the implications of Brexit for London’s financial hub, including the reactions of US banks.

12 February 2018
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In this blog post, Eurofound Research Assistant Eleonora Peruffo takes us through the various updates made to the ERM Restructuring-related legislation database during 2017.

21 December 2017

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