Nestle is moving the bookkeeping department of Osem to Nestle's center in Europe two years after taking over the Osem group by acquiring the public's shares and delisting it from trading. Nestle is now pruning Osem's bookkeeping department in Israel by laying off 30 of the 50 employees in the department.
The layoffs will take place in 2019, with Osem's bookkeeping moving to Nestle's headquarters in Ukraine. This is the first time that Osem's physical presence in Israel is being moved to Europe at Israel's expense.
The measure is taking place simultaneously with management changes. The Osem group announced last week that Itzik Zaig was resigning after seven years as CEO and will be replaced by food division CEO Avi Ben Assayag.
Osem is Israel's third largest food supplier with a 9.4% market share. Osem's sales grew from NIS 801 million in the first quarter of 2017 to NIS 856 million in the first quarter of 2018.
The Nestle-Osem group stated, "Osem is leading a process of business excellence including the assimilation of new technologies, improvement of processes, and obtaining service from Nestle's international centers. Understandings were reached in this framework in which Osem is letting go a limited number of employees in the company's bookkeeping department. The retirement process is a consensual one with generous terms and dialogue with the workers' committee and the Histadrut (General Federation of Labor in Israel). At the same time, Osem will hire 200 employees in 2018 for important jobs in the company. Osem employs 4,700 workers in its nine plants in Israel, from Kibbutz Lochamei Hagetaot in the north to Sderot in the south."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on June 10, 2018
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2018