Young mothers in focus: H&M wants to get rid of staff

Tuesday, January 26, 2021

Focus on young mothers
H&M wants to get rid of staff

The clothing chain H&M is suffering from the crisis. The Swedish company wants to save 800 jobs in Germany in the short term. For this purpose, volunteers are to be found – according to a report, mainly young mothers. If the number of those willing to severance payments is insufficient, there is a risk of redundancies.

The Swedish fashion retailer H&M wants to cut around 800 jobs in Germany. That corresponds to around five percent of all the company's employees in Germany, said a company spokeswoman. H&M is trying to achieve the downsizing through a volunteer program in order to avoid redundancies. "If the number of volunteers in this program is insufficient, the decision will be made on a social selection," said the company.

"Business Insider" also reported on the downsizing. The business magazine wrote, referring to a formulated proposal from the management for the volunteer program, that the fashion house seemed primarily predestined for employees on parental leave. In the case of H&M, this mainly affects young mothers.

As the "Business Insider" reports, H&M is primarily concerned with saving staff in branches that generate too little turnover. According to this, employees who cannot or do not want to work in the evening or on weekends in the more profitable times are to be adopted there – hence the focus on young parents.

Verdi is outraged

The Verdi union reacted with criticism to the plans of H&M: "H&M Germany boss Thorsten Mindermann behaves like a corporate patriarch who makes decisions over the heads of women", quoted "Business Insider" Cosimo-Damiano Quinto from the Verdi professional group retail . "Equality in the company means equal participation of women in the restructuring process at H&M." The company is obliged to "enable working mothers family-friendly working hours instead of exploiting their double burden as a weakness and trying to put them on the street," said Quinto.

The corona crisis had also hit the fashion giant hard. In the financial year from December 2019 to November 2020, the H&M Group's net sales fell by 18 percent to around 187 billion Swedish kronor (around 18.3 billion euros). The group had already announced in October that it wanted to thin out its branch network.