[ad_1]
Forum Cinemas fires 32 workers. Photo by Vladimir Ivanovo (VŽ)
The film company Forum Cinemas, the passenger transport company Lux Express and the bankrupt UAB Gargždų plytų gamykla are laying off employees. The companies have reported this to the Employment Service in the last month, which after a pause of a few months again announces layoffs to the group’s employees.
Added by the comment of the head of the Employment Service I. Balnanosienė
Forum Cinemas, which is being bought by UP Invest, an Estonian businessman, Margus Linnamae, announced in early September that it was laying off 32 employees. Sodra data shows that the Lithuanian branch of Forum Cinemas currently has 136 employees.
Forum Cinemas OU is the largest cinema operator in the Baltic countries and operates the Coca-Cola Plaza cinema complex in Tallinn, Ekraan in Tartu and Centrum in Viljandi. The company has one cinema in Latvia and five in Lithuania. VŽ wrote that Forum Cinemas is currently owned by the Finnish film distribution company Finnkino Group, which in turn belongs to the Odeon Group. AMC, part of the US Theater Network in March. The acquisition is expected to be completed by the end of this year or at the latest early next year, subject to approval by the Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian competition authorities.
“The outbreak of COVID-19 means that the film business around the world is currently going through a difficult time, so corporate consolidation is inevitable. “Forum Cinemas is a very well-run company in the Baltic countries and we are very pleased with the transaction,” said Sven Nuutmann, Board Member and CEO of UP Invest.
Reduce travel
At that time, Lux Express Lithuania announced the layoff of 23 employees. According to Sodra, there are currently nine people left in the company.
The company announced earlier this month a cut in international travel. According to Raitas Remmelis, director of international business at Lux Express, demand for routes fell sharply in late August as the threat of Latvia imposing a requirement to isolate those coming from Lithuania and other countries increased. Latvia introduced this requirement last week. Isolation on arrival from Latvia to Lithuania is not mandatory.
“At the end of August, we saw a significant decrease in the need for international travel. The uncertainty about possible restrictions has a negative impact on the confidence of the passenger to travel between countries,” Remmelis said in an airline report published in the beginning of September.
He maintains that the need to travel in midsummer seemed promising, but the situation at the end of the summer was no longer so positive.
VŽ wrote that in midsummer, the German transport giant hit the Baltic market, where the international brand Eurolines, Latvia Ecolines and Estonian Lux Express, represented by the Lithuanian companies Kautra and Toks, had a hard time. FlixBus. His trump card is a wide web, but the elders already at that time expressed the opinion that neither the market itself nor its prospects promise unexpected success stories.
Forgive everyone
The Gargždai brick factory announced the dismissal of the 43 workers. According to the Registry Center, the plant was absorbed by the bankruptcy administrator since the end of August and the main creditors of the company, SEB and Luminor, declared the company bankrupt, out of court.
August 21 The document of the creditors’ meeting establishes that the plant owes the bank SEB 10.3 million. EUR, Luminor: just over 5 million. EUR. Your claims represent more than 75% of the company’s total liabilities to creditors.
The report presented to the Center of Records indicates that the company received 2.329 million LTL last year. 819,500 euros of net profit and accumulates 1,419 million euros. Profit in euros.
The company reported potential financial problems in 2019. The report said it was idle during quarantine and threatened with insolvency.
Updated before
The dismissals of the group’s employees had been announced by the Employment Service in the summer, the decision was motivated by “the lack of will to increase tensions.” The notice of dismissal was to be updated as of January next year.
The portal “15min.lt” wrote that the institution could be pressured by companies that prevent the dissemination of such knowledge. Economists viewed the service’s decision negatively and argued that such information was important for evaluating changes in the economy.
The head of the Employment Service, Inga Balnanosienė, said on Wednesday that it has been decided to renew the announcement of layoffs now, without waiting for January next year, as the economic situation and the government’s policy have become more stable.
Ms Balnanosienuró assured that the company did not pressure the company that it did not want to disclose this information, but admitted that the service had received complaints that such disclosure was harmful to companies.
“The decisions were made in response to the change in the labor market situation and the stability of the situation, since there were no more interruptions, the companies did not change their position. We must guarantee transparency, it was simply no longer necessary to wait until the end of the year, ”I. Balnanosienė told BNS.
“Also, the more moderate the government’s policy, the better the business has adapted,” he added.
According to the person in charge of the service, the publicity of the collective redundancies was suspended because there were cases in which the companies reported dismissals, but then the situation improved, they used state aid and finally they retained part or all of their employees.
“Because these announcements were made public, some employees simply left the company and lost their workforce, they could not control these processes, because the situation in the country was unstable,” said I. Balnanosienė.
According to her, there were “up to ten” cases in which companies reported layoffs but ultimately retained employees. According to the owner, if there are similar cases in the future, the service will “react again.”
According to I. Balnanosienė, information on group dismissals was not published from the end of April until September.
“We received the first signs from companies in early April that it could be harmful or damaging. It all starts with a company, so we had to assess whether it is reasonable or unreasonable and make a decision in coordination with the social partners,” he said I. Balnanosienė.
But at the same time, he denied that the service felt pressure from the company to stop releasing the data.
“There was no pressure, there was a request to pay attention to the fact that this situation and the publication of company names can further destabilize the situation,” said I. Balnanosienė.
The Authority’s decision not to make public the dismissals of the group’s employees was previously motivated by “the lack of will to increase tensions. The notice of dismissal was to be updated as of January next year.
The portal 15min.lt wrote in August that the institution could be pressured by companies that prevent the dissemination of such knowledge. Economists viewed the Bureau’s decision negatively and argued that such information was important for evaluating changes in the economy.
Write a comment
[ad_2]
