Chapter 7: Economic Recovery: From Company Restructuring to Company Reconstruction¹

In reaction to economic difficulties, companies often choose to resort to a restructuring approach via social plans, thus hoping to restore and/or improve their economic and financial performance. But if the objective of company restructuring is to adapt to a changing environment or to restore its competitiveness, the suppression or transformation of jobs that result from it are experienced all the more painfully by the staff. Even when there is planned redeployment towards new jobs, they still lack the necessary effectiveness and efficiency in those new roles. For Beaujolin-Bellet (2014, p. 5), a restructuring is a “managerial decision to modify the legal and productive structures of the company which is likely to entail consequences on employment and working conditions.”