Auchan

History

2024: Reduction of thousands of workers in France

On November 5, 2024, supermarket chain Auchan announced "unprecedented" job cuts in France. In addition, as part of the reorganization, some hypermarkets will be closed. These measures are designed to strengthen the market position amid financial difficulties and a decrease in store traffic.

According to Auchan, the company's staff in France for 2024 is about 54 thousand employees. As part of the restructuring, 2,389 workers in various units, or about 4.5%, will be cut. However, it is planned to create 319 new workplaces. It is assumed that these changes will help simplify the organizational structure and improve the efficiency of business decision-making.

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Auchan will also reportedly close hypermarkets in Clermont-Ferrand, Bar-le-Duc and Vuapi, one supermarket and six other convenience stores. In addition, the company intends to close three warehouses that were used to maintain the operation of the home delivery service. In order to increase traffic to its retail space, Auchan plans to lower prices.

The program of further growth includes changes in three main areas: these are improving customer experience, reducing costs and changing the concept of stores. In order to improve competitiveness, the company intends to reduce the area of ​ ​ its hypermarkets by about 25%. The assortment of non-food products will be reduced by 30-40%. Some of the stores will be transferred to franchise partners: as of the end of 2024, only 40 of Auchan's 260 outlets in France are operated by independent companies. Auchan says "the restructuring is unprecedented but necessary." It is expected that in the future, the measures taken will lead to an improvement in financial performance.^[1]

2023: Buying Dia stores in Portugal

On August 3, 2023, the French group Auchan announced an agreement to acquire 489 stores of the Spanish retailer Distribuidora Internacional de Alimentacion SA (DIA) in Portugal. Read more here.

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