The employees of Groupe Rocher (2.4 billion euros in turnover in 2021) had been dreading job cuts for weeks. The figure has fallen like a cleaver in recent days. Some 300 jobs are affected in France, the majority of them in Morbihan, birthplace of Yves Rocher, the group’s flagship company, which also owns Petit Bateau, Dr. Pierre Ricaud, Daniel Jouvance, more than 98% owned by the founder’s family.
Elsewhere in the world, more than a thousand of the 16,300 jobs of this company, present in 114 countries, would also be threatened. Discreet about its activity and its difficulties, the group explains, in a press release of January 31, to be “Faced with many upheavals, which force it to change its organization” and recognizes “a significant drop” of its turnover.
This had already fallen by 355 million between 2019 and 2021. Over the same period, the group had already lost more than a thousand jobs. This poor form would be due to the crisis of “yellow vests”, the Covid-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, although the group has decided to maintain its activity in Russia, but also to recent poor performance by the American company Arbonne, acquired in 2018…
“Disguised social plan”
In France, the 300 job cuts were recorded over three years as part of a job and career management agreement (GEPP). In this document, signed on January 16 by the majority union CFE-CGC and by the CFTC, the closure of the Ploërmel factory (Morbihan), specializing in the production and packaging of perfumes, is mentioned by 2025.
Tuesday, January 31, several dozen employees walked out in front of the site gates. A mobilization deemed historic by FO and the CFDT, who qualify the GEPP as “disguised social plan”. The spokesperson for the CFE-CGC within Groupe Rocher, Jérôme Billet, nuance: “The job cuts are dramatic. The news is experienced as a divorce or a death by many employees. Some have spent their entire career with the company. The GEPP nevertheless makes it possible to better support the employees concerned so that this difficult situation does not turn into a nightmare. »
Groupe Rocher does not foresee compulsory layoffs, but job closures following retirements. Mobility within the company will be offered to certain employees. Those not accepting their transfer will be “accompanied”, to find another job elsewhere. The signatory unions of the agreement say they have negotiated financial aid, various supports for moving or childcare, the opening of a psychological cell…
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