No collective redundancies at Belgian Nike distribution centres

Relief among employees at Nike‘s Belgian distribution centres: there will be no layoffs, though the company is shifting weekend jobs to weekdays to cut costs.

‘No storm clouds’

Nike is shifting 155 jobs from the weekend shift to the week at its distribution centres in Ham (Limburg) and Laakdal (Antwerp), as there is too little work on weekends and wage costs are higher then. However, contrarty to earlier fears, none of the 5,000 employees will lose their job, unions report today after the special works council.

On Saturday, staff will be told what extra measures will be taken. “There is no question of thunderclouds. There will even be an additional 150 temporary jobs in due course. However, this does have an impact on the family life of employees who have been working the weekend shift for a long time”, a union representative told local newspaper Het Belang van Limburg.

The sportswear brand has been under pressure for some time, due to a slowdown in Chinese economy – but also to wrong strategic choices, such as scaling down cooperation with multi-brand retailers. On top of that comes the threat of new import tariffs, while competitors like Hoka, Asivs and New Balance are gaining market share through a focus on sports, fashion and innovation.