The 55,000 layoffs from BT announced a few days ago bring to 100,000 the number of European workers who will lose their jobs due to the adjustments announced by large multinationals in recent months. Although in each particular case, the job cuts have different causes, there are a couple common to almost all of them: galloping inflation in the EU and the consequences of the war in Ukraine.
The cuts are focused on companies in sectors such as telecommunications (BT or Vodafone with 11,000 jobs), health (Philips with 6,000 or Grifols with 2,300), computing (SAP, 3,000), automotive (Volvo with 2,900 or Stellantis with 2,000). or chemistry (Basf, 2,600).
Raymond Torres, director of the situation of Funcas, reflects that "technology is going to influence productivity and this is going to be noticeable in employment." In the case of BT, the company itself acknowledged that the 42% cut in its workforce will occur after the deployment of fiber optics and the adaptation of artificial intelligence (AI) in the different processes. According to BT, digitization, automation and artificial intelligence alone can “save” 20,000 jobs.
“The use of artificial intelligence (AI) is already reducing the number of jobs in some sectors. This again shows the need to regulate the introduction and impact of AI at work, which is a long-standing demand of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC)”, warned the General Secretary of the (ETUC), Esther Lynch.
Jaime Sol, partner responsible for EY human resources advice in Spain, also cites the emergence of artificial intelligence as one of the elements that has accelerated the adjustments. But he also warns that high inflation, the war in Ukraine and the supply chain crisis force companies to carry out "adjustment measures to improve productivity and profitability".
It's a view shared by Orestes Wensell, Manpower's director of labor solutions, who says many companies "take drastic measures to cut costs, largely through downsizing, to stay competitive."
Wensell insists that although there are different reasons for each company, "there are several common factors, such as the slowdown of the economy, high levels of inflation, automation and other technological changes, the competitiveness of global markets, or the geopolitical crisis that we are living with war.”
Although Raymond Torres warns of the effects of weaker growth for the coming months, he also highlights the better relative performance in the face of threats derived from the war in Ukraine. “The impact has been less because we have reorganized the way of life”, he adds.
Regarding the 100,000 layoffs in Europe, the Secretary General of the (CES), Lynch, maintains that "these figures show that workers are paying the price of political inaction in the face of the greatest challenges facing Europe today."
In relation to the possible causes, the British trade unionist points out that "they are the result of the energy crisis, but they could have been avoided if the EU had listened to the unions and prolonged the labor protection scheme used with such success during the pandemic to help the sectors most affected by price increases”.
Lynch also blames mergers for the increase in layoffs. The new secretary general of the ESC believes that the EU should react: "the increasing number of job cuts should be a wake-up call for national and EU leaders."
Other notable companies that have carried out redundancies are Ericsson (8,500), Telecom Italia (2,000), Sainsbury's (1,400), Kone (1,000), Deutsche Bank (850), Deliveroo (350), Logitech (300), British Steel ( 260), Nokia (208) or Evonik (200), reports Reuters
