PENS: The company, Bic will also hire 400 people, but mostly in Bulgaria
The French giant of pens, razors and lighters Bic announced Thursday its intention to cut about 450 jobs worldwide, mainly in its administrative functions, while creating 400 new jobs in new jobs digital. Job cuts will notably affect a hundred employees at its head office in Clichy ( Hauts-de-Seine ), which currently includes 400, said Sophie Palliez-Caplan, director of external relations of the group.
On the side of jobs created, “forty or so” will be on the site of Clichy, near Paris. But the bulk of job creation – nearly 200 – will be made in Sofia, Bulgaria, where a service centre for the group will be installed, she added. Bic will recruit “data scientists, digital marketers and e-commerce specialists,” detailed Sophie Palliez-Capian.
Decrease in profitability
In total, the group currently has 13,600 employees worldwide, including 1,800 in France. Its factories will not be affected by this waltz. The job cuts should start from the end of 2019, following a procedure of information-consultation of staff, and the creation of posts will be carried out in parallel. Both processes will run until 2022.
These measures, coupled with other improvements in production and product development, should bring to 45 million euros the annual savings generated by the group from the end of 2022, against 20 million euros announced until there, according to a statement. For the moment, Bic has not quantified the impact of these measures on its short-term profitability. “We will have a more precise idea at the end of the year,” according to Sophie Palliez-Capian.
The group is already anticipating a further decline in profitability this year, mainly due to higher commodity prices, unfavourable currency effects and higher production costs due to lower sales volumes. According to its objectives announced in February, Bic aims for a normalized operating margin of between 16.5% and 18% in 2019, compared to 18.1% last year and 19.6% in 2017, for a turnover of in “slight growth” at constant exchange rates and perimeter.
