The Swedish fashion retailer H&M wants to cut 500 jobs in view of the booming online trade and the corona pandemic in Germany.
But now customers are against the plans by storm.
Hennes & Mauritz
(
H&M
) reacted late to the booming online trade.
Now the past failures overtake the Swedes.
In order to reduce costs, the company
now
wants to cut
jobs
in
Germany
.
But the plans threaten to become a veritable
PR disaster
.
Update from January 27, 2021, 11.45 a.m.
- The Swedish fashion retailer
Hennes & Mauritz
(
H&M
) wants to cut 800 jobs in view of falling sales in Germany.
Business Insider reports that young women in particular are apparently affected by the plans.
To accelerate the downsizing, the company is planning a voluntary severance program.
The plans are "explicitly" aimed at employees who are still on parental leave, reports the portal, citing an internal paper from the
H&M management
.
Employees on parental leave are legally protected against dismissal.
However, the regulation no longer applies after returning from parental leave.
Most of the
young women work
at
H&M
.
This would mean that young mothers would be particularly hard hit by the plans.
The
Ver.di
union
categorically rejects the plans.
A volunteer program was “not an issue,” said an unnamed works councilor to the portal.
There is also great displeasure at the Verdi union.
H&M
Germany boss
Thorsten Mindermann
behaves "like a corporate patriarch who makes decisions over the heads of women", Cosimo-Damiano Quinto told Business Insider.
H&M: Shitstorm on the net
There is also great outrage in social networks.
The plans are "discriminatory", "disgusting" and "anti-social", it says on
.
Many users want to
turn their backs on
H&M in the
future.
“I'm going to boycott H&M with immediate effect”, “I don't buy anything there”, “Not a cent from me for the company”, it says in the relevant posts.
The considerations of the H&M management were a
disaster
with announcement, jokes a user: "I'm just imagining the meeting at
H&M
: People, we absolutely need a new PR disaster, someone ideas?"
Corona crisis: Swedish fashion giant is using the red pencil - and wants to cut around 800 jobs
First report from January 26th, 12:38 p.m.
- The Swedish fashion retailer
H&M
wants to cut around 800 jobs in Germany.
That corresponds to around 5 percent of all employees of the company in the Federal Republic, said a company spokeswoman on Tuesday in Hamburg.
H&M is
trying to achieve the downsizing through a volunteer program in order to avoid redundancies.
"If the number of volunteers in this program is not sufficient, the decision will be made on a social selection," said the company.
The
corona
crisis hit the fashion giant hard.
In the past fiscal year (November 30), the
H&M
Group's
revenues
plummeted by 18 percent to around 187 billion Swedish crowns (around 18.3 billion euros).
The group had already announced in October that it wanted to thin out its branch network.
H&M: Corona pandemic is massively affecting many clothing chains
At other fashion retailers, too, the economic situation has recently deteriorated dramatically as a result of the corona pandemic and the renewed lockdown.
Just a week ago, the fashion chain
Adler Modemärkte
, for example,
filed for bankruptcy.
171 branches are to be closed nationwide.
The discount fashion chain
Pimkie is also
fighting for its existence.
So that the company still has any chance of survival, the management now wants to close every second location.
(
dpa
)