According to an insider, Adidas boss Björn Gulden wants to cut up to 500 jobs at the sporting goods manufacturer’s headquarters in Herzogenaurach. According to official information, this was the result of a restructuring. You don’t want to use the word ‘austerity program’.
Gulden mentioned the number during a meeting with the workforce on Wednesday, a participant told the Reuters news agency on Thursday. The world’s second largest sporting goods manufacturer employs approximately 5,800 people in Herzogenaurach.
“Manager Magazin” first reported on the dismantling plans. These should be achieved through severance payments, but a social plan is also possible, the report says.
Adapting to a “complex world”
An Adidas spokeswoman declined to confirm the number. However, it turned out that the company structures were “too complex in a constantly changing world”. It is not about an austerity program.
“To make Adidas successful in the long term, we have now started investigating how we can adapt our structures to the reality of the way we work. This may have an impact on the organizational structure and the number of positions at our headquarters in Herzogenaurach.” It is still unclear how many of these will be eliminated.
In recent years, Gulden had started to decentralize the group and shift responsibility from the head office to the individual markets. He had repeatedly emphasized that the group had to get back on track to growth before addressing staffing issues – also so as not to demotivate the workforce.
Sales have improved significantly recently
On Tuesday evening, Adidas presented preliminary figures for the past year, which were considerably better than expected with an increase in turnover of eleven percent and an operating result of 1.34 billion euros.
Just 24 hours later, smaller rival Puma announced a savings program that would also reduce staff costs. Despite an increase in turnover, Puma’s operating result remained the same last year. However, CEO Arne Freundt wants to keep the number of employees worldwide stable at 21,000.
Source: Krone
I’m Ben Stock, a journalist and author at Today Times Live. I specialize in economic news and have been working in the news industry for over five years. My experience spans from local journalism to international business reporting. In my career I’ve had the opportunity to interview some of the world’s leading economists and financial experts, giving me an insight into global trends that is unique among journalists.
