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.
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The uneven reshaping of Europe’s automotive industry
While large-scale redundancies at major manufacturers dominate the headlines, the true impact of this restructuring is being felt most acutely within the wider supply chain. This article examines the uneven distribution of job losses, the growing geographical shifts in production, and the persistent fragility of employment expectations across the sector.Restructuring legislation: 2023–2025 developments
Eurofound’s ERM restructuring legislation database offers an overview of key restructuring-related regulations in the EU Member States and Norway. Its content is continuously updated to reflect any changes made by national legislators in response to, for instance, policy shifts, legal precedents, economic fluctuations or social needs. Recent updates to the database reveal several changes in national legislation that could have significant impacts on workers.Battery manufacturing in the EU: From hope to crisis to hope again?
Can Europe still achieve its ambitions for battery manufacturing? To answer this, the article looks at data from Eurofound’s European Restructuring Monitor and explores what recent large-scale restructuring events reveal about the state of play in the EU battery sector.Eurofound monitoring tools
The employment impact of restructuring has been featuring in the policy agenda. For example, the EU has introduced several measures to enhance employee information and consultation processes at the enterprise level, which can help mitigate the employment impact of restructuring. Notable initiatives include the Collective Redundancies Directive, the Preventive Restructuring Directive, the Information and Consultation Directive, and the European Works Council Directive. The EU Quality Framework for Anticipation of Change and Restructuring calls on companies and workers to prepare and manage restructuring in a socially responsible manner. Additionally, on 12 March 2025, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on the social and employment aspects of restructuring processes: the need to protect jobs and workers' rights. The resolution includes a call for the protection of jobs and workers' rights and stresses the importance of early anticipation of restructuring and of meaningful social dialogue.
The European Union has also set up a fund specifically for restructuring issues. The European Globalisation Adjustment Fund (EGF) is a specific solidarity fund to support workers who lost their jobs because of globalisation. The instrument was renewed and expanded from 2021 to 2027 to also cover structural changes related to globalisation, financial or economic crises, the transition to a low-carbon economy, digitisation or automation. As an emergency fund, the EGF operates reactively to assist displaced workers affected by major restructuring events.
The legal landscape of restructuring is further complemented by various other EU initiatives, notably the European Pillar of Social Rights. The pillar is 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. In this context, the Directive on Transparent and Predictable Working Conditions is a key piece of legislation, implementing some of the principles set out in the Pillar.
This is a selection of the most important outputs for this topic.
18 September 2025
Company restructuring and the twin transitions: Evidence from the European Restructuring Monitor
27 January 2025
Employment in the EU’s automotive sector
25 September 2022
Going digital: Restructuring trends in retail banking
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 global financial crisis, and it is one of the few service sectors with stagnant or declining employment. In addition to the technological changes in how services are provided, the sector is also responding to other challenges, including an increased regulatory and compliance burden, competition from fintech, and low interest rates and reduced profitability. The case studies in this report describe examples of recent restructuring in the sector, what motivated the restructuring, how it was managed and how it affected employment, work organisation, and other business and employee outcomes.
10 November 2020
ERM report 2020: Restructuring across borders
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 main source for both analyses is the European Restructuring Monitor events database, which has collected details of over 25,000 large-scale restructurings since it began in 2002, including nearly 2,000 since the beginning of 2019. The review of the data on transnational restructuring is complemented with a summary of case studies based on international relocations of production. The aim is to highlight the types of dispute that arise, how the restructuring is managed by management and the social partners, and what the outcomes are for the workers affected.
Researchers at Eurofound provide expert insights and can be contacted for questions or media requests.
Chiara Litardi
Research officerChiara Litardi is a research officer in the Employment unit at Eurofound. She works on topics related to restructuring, employment and upward convergence. Chiara manages the European Restructuring Monitor and supervises the information processing, quality control and analysis of its databases. Prior to joining Eurofound in 2021, she worked as an analyst at the European Central Bank, running pan-euro area surveys and researching payment behaviour and financial inclusion. She holds a Master's degree in Economics and Finance from LUISS University in Rome, and a double degree in Quantitative Techniques for Economics and Management (QTEM), and is currently a PhD student at University College Dublin.
Sara Riso
Senior research managerSara Riso joined Eurofound in 2006 and is currently a senior research manager in the Working Life unit. She is engaged in research projects focusing on digitalisation and working conditions. Before joining Eurofound, Sara managed research projects for large Brussels-based European associations and networks. Her academic background is in psychology, communication and languages. Her main research interest lies in exploring new workplace stressors arising from increased digitalisation of work, evolving organisational practices, and change management strategies to address the challenges posed by digitalisation in modern working environments.
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