Large-scale social plan project in Auchan: 2,300 jobs threatened – Libération

The distributor Auchan, flagship brand of the Mulliez galaxy, is preparing to present this Tuesday, November 5, a large-scale draft social plan to representatives of its employees, threatening around 2,300 jobs in France, according to a source close to the matter. , confirming this Monday, November 4, information from the Letter.

Staff representatives from several entities of the northern group are summoned this Tuesday at 9 a.m. to CSEs in the Lille region, for a “update on the company’s situation and its projects”. Unions fear bad news on the employment front, according to this source. The management of the Auchan group, which employs around 54,000 people in France, did not wish to comment to AFP. Some of the positions at risk would be at the level of support functions within the various headquarters, another part at the store level.

The pioneer of the hypermarket format

Auchan Retail had already announced in September 2020 the elimination of 1,475 positions in France, after a voluntary departure plan of more than 500 positions in January of the same year, the first in the company's history.

The pioneer of the hypermarket format is going through difficult economic years and its holding company Elo announced in July a net loss of almost a billion euros over the first six months of 2024. In 2023, Elo – which employed as of September 30 that year 155,000 people around the world, including 64,400 in France – had published a net loss of 379 million euros and sales down by 1.7%, to 32.9 billion euros, while inflation had boosted the sales of most of its competitors.

In France, Auchan is the fifth largest distributor with just over 9% of the market, far from the leading trio E.Leclerc (24.1%), Carrefour (21.4%) and Mousquetaires-Intermarché (17.4%). and behind Coopérative U (12.2%), according to the Kantar institute. Auchan recently joined forces with its competitors Intermarché and Casino to pool purchases of foodstuffs then sold on the shelves of their stores, for an unusually long period of ten years.

This pooling has aroused concern among trade union organizations, as has the announced objective of reducing the commercial surface area of ​​around a third of Auchan hypermarkets. “in all its European countries”, or ultimately a “average reduction of 25% in sales areas”.