Many Media Markt and Saturn employees have to worry about their jobs. The majority owner Ceconomy pulls through the removal of thousands of jobs, as is now announced. German employees have better chances than foreign ones to keep their jobs.
The planned restructuring of Media Markt and Saturn will cost up to 3,500 full-time positions across Europe, mainly in other European countries. At least 14 loss-making stores will be closed, the number of closings in Europe may increase slightly in the coming months. The supervisory board decided this in a meeting, said Ceconomy, the majority shareholder of the electronics retail chain. The minority shareholder of Mediamarktsaturn, the company Convergenta Invest owned by the Kellerhals family, supports the plans.
The plans are in line with what the group had promised in early August. According to the announcement, the job cuts are to take place within the next 24 to 36 months. With the conversion, the group wants to save costs of just over 100 million euros per year, the majority of which should take effect from the 2022/23 financial year. The Düsseldorf-based retail group is planning a one-off expenditure of around 180 million euros, which will mainly be incurred in the current financial year, which runs until the end of September. The forecast for the full year 2019/20, which the Düsseldorf retail group only increased in mid-July, remains unaffected.
According to the announcement, the group currently employs around 45,000 full-time employees and the number of stores is around 1,000. The plans envisage a Europe-wide uniform organizational structure with standardized processes and procedures in the stores and administrations of the regional subsidiaries of Media Markt and with a so-called operating model Saturn in front. The markets are to be relieved of administrative tasks and the company is to be controlled more and more centrally.
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