Up to 80 people – mainly from the IT sector – are to be registered with the AMS for termination, the company confirmed reports from “Tiroler Tageszeitung” and ORF Tirol on Friday at APA’s request. However, this should be an “upper limit”. It was asserted that Swarovski was committed to the Wattens location “in the long term”.
They want to set up a “social plan and a Swarovski work foundation” for the employees affected. The terminations would take place in the course of a “major transformation process”. “The focus here is on making the administration and the supporting group structures such as IT as effective and lean as possible in order to be able to place a strong focus on the production, development and sale of the products,” said the Swarovski statement.
The group argued that 482 new employees were hired last year. According to Selina Stärz, head of the central works council, this is not an increase, but the number of new employees without deducting retirements or other departures. “It’s true that after the massive staff cuts in recent years, staff was hired again, but the number of employees in Wattens is still less than 3,000,” said Stärz of “TT”. As the company announced, more than 3,000 people work in Wattens.
The crystal group has been confronted with severe turbulence in recent years. This affected the management of the Group as well as the economic situation due to the corona crisis. Ex-CEO Robert Buchbauer initiated a restructuring of the group – including large-scale layoffs in Wattens – with which part of the family clan did not agree. An arbitral tribunal recently decided that the structural reform was illegal and had to be reversed. For the first time this year, Alexis Nasard, a non-family person, took over the management of the company.
Source: Nachrichten
