The Michelin group plans to cut over three years up to 2,300 jobs in France, without forced departures, as part of a "competitiveness plan" presented on Wednesday January 6, and while it forecasts positive results for 2020 despite the health crisis.

A few months after the announcement of the closure of the Bridgestone plant in Béthune, the French tire manufacturer announced a new cut in its workforce which will affect all its sites in France.

Michelin president Florent Menegaux told AFP that there would be "no plant closure, no forced departure. We anticipate around 60% of pre-retirement measures and 40% of voluntary departures, in the framework of collective contractual ruptures (RCC) ". 

All locations

From Clermont-Ferrand to Epinal via Vannes and Troyes, this new reorganization concerns "all the French sites of the group", specified Florent Menegaux.

"Michelin is committed to recreating as many jobs as there will be deleted," he added, however, praising the protective social model of the company.

At the same time as these job cuts, Michelin intends to increase its activity in various industrial fields of the future.

Through this plan, the group aims "to improve its competitiveness of up to 5% per year" for tertiary activities and for industry, which could mean "within three years a reduction of positions of up to up to 2,300 ", of Michelin's 21,000 in France - or 10% of the workforce.

The group had already made in 1999 a historic cut of 7,500 jobs.

More recently, the group, subjected to competition from tires at knockdown prices, cut nearly 1,500 jobs, particularly at its historic headquarters in Clermont-Ferrand (Puy-de-Dôme) and in the United States.

It also closed the sites of La Roche-sur-Yon (Vendée) and Bamberg in Germany.

The coronavirus crisis delayed the announcement of this new restructuring in preparation for 18 months, but did not cause it, underlines the president of Michelin.

The number of departures site by site will be specified in the coming months: the group's management wishes to open negotiations "quickly" with the trade unions around a "framework agreement for a period of 3 years".

 However, the group is doing well and forecasts positive results for 2020 despite the health crisis.

Dividends distributed to shareholders increased as the group improved its results: the dividend per share has tripled since 2009.

The specter of 1999

In 1999, a similar situation shocked public opinion, prompting the then Prime Minister, Lionel Jospin, to stress that we should not "expect everything from the State".

Édouard Michelin, then very young president of the group, had regretted a clumsiness in the announcement of the plan.

“We have always distributed around 35% of our result. A few years ago, we weren't making any results, so we weren't distributing dividends,” explains Florent Menegaux in 2021. “Our shareholders continued to follow us during these years, it is normal that they are compensated for the risk they take ".

In 2020, "Michelin will have distributed 360 million dividends, and 6.4 billion euros in personnel costs, including 1.2 billion in France," said Menegaux.

For the past ten years, the group has "been faced with profound structural changes in the world tire market, marked in particular by the massive arrival of low-cost products", underlines Michelin in a press release.

It must therefore "support the strategic changes in its activities to prepare for the future. This is particularly the case in France where the vitality of its positions requires a significant strengthening of its competitiveness," he underlines.

"Michelin is not abandoning France" and "will reinvest part of the savings made in the development of new activities", underlines Florent Menegaux.

Its 15 industrial sites in France have gradually specialized in high-end, agricultural, industrial and competition tires.

At the same time, Michelin is pursuing "its strategy of locating new high value-added activities in France", such as hydrogen fuel cells, 3D printing, adhesives or the recycling of plastic waste.

By 2030, Michelin wants 30% of its turnover to be generated excluding tires.

With AFP

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