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What a back and forth at General Electric, which took over much of ABB’s electricity business a few years ago:
- In mid-2018, GE announced that 50 jobs would be cut at Oberentfelden. The remaining 500 would move to Birr in the spring of 2019 and the Oberentfelden location would be canceled.
- In December 2019, our newspaper revealed that GE had sold the area in Oberentfelden. To the transport company Dreier AG based in Suhr. The 500 jobs would now move to Birr, in the best case to Turgi.
- In February 2020 it was said: The plant in Oberentfelden is “working very well”, it is operating at full capacity and therefore will not be closed, and the workplaces will not be moved to Birr.
And now, this morning, at an employee information desk, it was explained that everything is different. Apparently the business is bad, the jobs could not be transferred to Birr, but they would be eliminated. From the employees’ side, the information was interpreted to mean that parts of the company could move to France.
As General Electric, respectively the GE Grid Solutions division, announced Friday afternoon, the Oberentfelden location will not be moved to Birr, but will be closed. 436 jobs would be lost at Oberentfelden. In Switzerland 57 positions would be maintained. These positions come primarily from the areas of R&D, compliance, commercial and services to support the installed base in Switzerland, writes GE.
Whether the positions will be moved to France or to other countries, as rumored, the company did not provide information in the press release.
The decision is apparently not final yet. The measure is “for review” with the Group’s European works council. The company declares: The final decision (…) will only be made when the consultation procedures of the European works council have been concluded, as well as at the local level in Switzerland. This is expected by the end of the year.
The company wants to offer those affected by the reduction an internal job placement service. With comparable measures, more than 90 percent of employees would have found a new job at the end of their employment.
The reason for the renewed job cuts is the bleak future prospects in the market, especially in the area of ”gas-insulated switchgear”.
The update continues …
