The shoe factory that the Danish multinational Ecco has in Santa Maria da Feira will lay off 54 employees, the company’s management announced this Friday, which attributes the measure to the need to guarantee its “competitiveness and sustainability”.
This industrial unit in the district of Aveiro, currently with around 900 workers distributed across different work shifts, revealed today the specific number of employees affected by the measure, despite having already informed them at the beginning of March that it would carry out a collective dismissal.
Now, the multinational’s management tells the Lusa agency that an organizational restructuring is underway in the Production and Quality departments. “Although it is a difficult decision that affects good and dedicated professionals, this restructuring is a necessary step to guarantee the long-term competitiveness and sustainability of Ecco Portugal”, declares the company.
The management of the Portuguese unit says it is committed to “conducting this process with transparency and respect for all affected employees, providing support during this transition period”. This will include, he highlights, “exit benefits, as is the company’s usual practice.”
Founded in the Danish city of Bredebro in 1963, Ecco has since expanded its production not only to Portugal, but also to Slovakia, China, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand. According to the company’s own institutional statement, between shoe factories, cooperages and stores, the brand is currently represented in 60 countries.
According to World Footwear, a platform of APICCAPS (Portuguese Association of Footwear, Components, Articles, Leather and Substitutes), at the end of 2022 Ecco recorded global revenue in the order of 1.59 billion euros, which reflected a increase of 30% compared to the previous year. The group noted, however, that these results were not satisfactory, as they were “considerably below pre-pandemic levels”.
Tags: Ecco lay people Fair ensure competitiveness sustainability Companies
