The French heavyweight manufacturer Renault Trucks will cut 463 white collar jobs in order to adapt its workforce to the economic crisis caused by the Covid-19 epidemic, company management said on Tuesday. Renault Trucks, which explains that it must prepare for a level of activity lower than its pre-crisis levels " in the short and medium term ", specifies that these reductions in staff will only affect technicians and managers.
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The job losses will be limited to around 360 by the internal resumption of study activities currently outsourced by the defense subsidiary Arquus, says the union CFE-CGC. The modalities of implementation of this plan " are not yet known, but the company wishes to open the negotiation of a collective contractual rupture upon the return of summer vacation ", adds CFE-CGC, which requests that departures are done on a voluntary basis.
A departure plan based on volunteering
According to its president Bruno Blin, Renault Trucks wishes to resort to voluntary departures and internal mobility so as to “not proceed with any forced dismissal. These measures are part of a vast restructuring plan announced by the parent company of Renault Trucks, the Swedish group AB Volvo, which wants the departure of 4,100 employees worldwide.
Renault Trucks has nearly 10,000 employees, including 4,500 in its industrial activities, mainly in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region and in Calvados. " The decrease in the number of employees generates a loss of know-how and a decrease in both technical and commercial development capacity ", regrets the CFE-CGC which considers that this new restructuring "weakens" the French company which has already experienced several major social plans in recent years.
