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H&M
Low-cost fashion brand H&M said Wednesday that it will be reducing its global workforce by around 1,500 positions as part of a plan to reduce costs and further improve efficiency. The Sweden-based company said a restructuring charge of 800 million kronor ($76 million) will be booked in the last three months of the year. The staff reduction is estimated to provide annual savings of about 2 billion kronor ($190 million). CEO Helena Helmersson said H&M was very mindful of the fact that colleagues will be affected by this. We will support our colleagues in finding the best possible solution for their next step. H&M was founded in Sweden in 1947. Besides the clothing retailer, the group includes brands like COS, Monki, Weekday, Cheap Monday, & Other Stories, H&M Home, ARKET and Afound. It counts about 4,664 stores in 77 markets and has 57 online markets.
Low-cost fashion brand Hennes & Mauritz AB said Tuesday sales had increased 75% in Q2 and early June, affecting both online purchases and physical stores, adding that 1,300 stores were temporarily closed at the start of the period due to the pandemic. Those who remained open faced coronavirus restrictions, including on opening hours, number of customers and store space, the group said. In Hennes & Mauritz's large markets, such as France and Germany, stores were closed throughout most of the quarter. As more people are vaccinated, a number of markets have gradually allowed stores to reopen and the H&M group's strong recovery continues, said the Stockholm-based company, the world's second biggest fashion retailer that is known for the brand H&M. This shows that customers appreciate the collections and being able to shop via their preferred channel. At the end of the period that ended May 31, most of the H&M group's markets still had restrictions resulting in reduced .
Swedish apparel retailer H&M on Tuesday announced the appointment of Yanira Ramirez as the new country sales manager for India. Previously global Sales Manager for & Other Stories, Ramirez joins the India team at a time when H&M India has 50 stores across 25 cities, a newly launched digital loyalty programme and a strong online presence on hm.com and Myntra, the company said in a statement. She will be based out of H&M India's head office in New Delhi, it added. A qualified lawyer, Ramirez had joined the H&M Group 18 years ago. Originally from Mexico, she started her journey with H&M in the UK as a sales adviser in the store and then moved on to become an Area Manager, post which she became Country HR for H&M UK & IE and then joined the Global Sales and Operations HR team in Sweden, the company said.
A German privacy watchdog said Thursday that it is fining clothing retailer H&M 35.3 million euros ($41 million) after the company was found to have spied on some of its employees in Germany. Hamburg's data protection commissioner said in a statement that the Swedish company collected private information about employees at a customer service center in Nuremberg, ranging from rather harmless details to family issues and religious beliefs. The information was recorded on a network drive accessible to up to 50 managers and used, among other things, to obtain a detailed profile of employees for measures and decisions regarding their employment. The data protection commissioner, Johannes Caspar, said that the combination of collecting details about their private lives and the recording of their activities led to a particularly intensive encroachment on employees' civil rights. The privacy violation was discovered after the data briefly became visible to all people on the company ...