PSA Peugeot Citroen is insisting today’s announcement of 6,500 redundancies across two French plants will be enough to see it achieve break-even by the end of 2014.
The huge cull – which will see the C3-producing plant at Aulnay close with 3,000 job losses, 1,500 go at Rennes and up to 3,600 more posts disappear across the Group – has caused shock waves across a France already grappling with rising unemployment and the pressing need to cut its massive deficit.
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“The objective is to break even at the end of 2014 – we have confidence it [job cuts] will be enough,” a PSA spokeswoman told just-auto from Paris. “If the market stays as it is today, we are confident it will be enough.
“Varin[Philippe, PSA CEO] has just finished a conference [in Paris]. It just explained no-one had seen this tremendous break in the European markets. It is Europe. It is a European problem.”
It appears there has been a frantic series of meetings between PSA and the newly-elected French government recently, which is now facing the prospects of mass redundancies within weeks of assuming power.
The French automaker confirmed to just-auto this morning (12 July) it had met the government “several times” during the past few weeks as rumours refused to dissipate it was about to wield the axe, but the scale of the mass redundancies has nonetheless rattled political cages.
“We don’t hide anything from the government,” said the spokeswoman. “It is our responsibility as an industry to find solutions.
“It is the government’s responsibility to check and be vigilant. We have had many, many political reactions.”
The specific timetable for redundancies will see a Works Council convened for 25 July – the same day on which PSA presents its first-half year results.
Following that, the automaker will call for voluntary redundancies until the middle of next year, although a potential 1,500 of Aulnay’s 3,000-strong workforce could transfer to PSA’s Poissy site.
Some 1,400 workers at the Rennes factory will also be offered voluntary termination as will the 3,600 non-assembly staff asked to leave across the Group.
The timetable for any forced redundancies remains unclear, while PSA is declining to put a figure on a compensation package that could see up to 8,000 staff leave the company.
