Carrefour: not 1000, but 3000 layoffs?

Carrefour has the intention to cut 3,000 French jobs instead of 1,000 as previously announced: the supermarket group wants to give an additional 1,770 employees a chance to go on early retirement.

1,770 more jobs in jeopardy

Instead of discussing the possibility of fewer layoffs, Carrefour is now negotiating almost three times as many as originally stated. The supermarket group had announced earlier on that it wanted to spare expenses in their ailing hypermarkets, leading to the loss of 1,230 jobs. Now it turns out Carrefour is planning to dismiss as many as 3,000 employees.

To be clear: the extra job cuts would not be forced dismissals, but voluntary separation programmes. Carrefour is in talks with the French unions on a proposition to increase the number of voluntary departures by another 1,770 through extra early pension arrangements. Reuters reported the news, which was confirmed by a spokesperson.

By next week, Carrefour intends to reach an agreement with the unions and execute the plan in the second half of the year. The jeopardised jobs are mostly in the group’s major hypermarkets in the domestic market of France. In January 2018, the group launched a five-year plan to lower costs and stimulate growth, which included the reduction of the mostly loss-making hypermarkets. Throughout last year, Carrefour managed to save 1.05 billion euros by restructuring and reducing expenses.