French retailer Carrefour to reduce staff and wages

PARIS - The Associated Press

Carrefour is planning to cut staff and wages to reduce costs following losses, but will not stop offering everything under one roof, says new CEO Georges Plassater.

Carrefour is planning to cut staff and wages to reduce costs following losses, but will not stop offering everything under one roof, says new CEO Georges Plassater.

Carrefour will have to cut staff and wages, but won’t retreat from its model of offering everything from vegetables to dishwashers under one roof, new CEO Georges Plassat said yesterday, as the French retailer announced as loss of 31 million euros ($39 million) in the first half.

The company, which is also active in Turkey, has recently pulled out of Greece - selling its stake in Greek supermarket chain Marinopoulos - and will close its two stores in Singapore by the end of the year.,
Europe’s largest retailer by sales has struggled in recent years, hit hard by the economic crisis but also flawed management that led to rising costs, higher prices and a now-abandoned plan to rebrand some stores as high-end. Plassat has been called in to turn around the operations - not the first time the company has tried to reverse course in recent years. Plassat promised to root out waste, to decrease staff with a buy-out plan and to rethink compensation with an eye to reducing bonuses - all while drawing laughs from analysts and journalists for his biting if oblique references to the follies of his predecessors.

Plassat would not confirm reports that several hundred jobs would be cut, saying that the company is waiting to see the take-up of the its buy-out plan. But he did not mince words in saying that some employees were “under the influence of chloroform.”