Yet another important meeting on Monday in Rome, at the Ministry of Made in Italy, between the management of Beko, the national secretariats of Fim, Fiom, Uilm and Uglm, the territorial ones and the RSU of the various Italian plants, and the representatives of the ministry, for the negotiations regarding redundancies and closures, in particular for the 540 redundancies in Cassinetta di Biandronno, in the Varese area.
Beko: 458 redundancies between Cassinetta, Melano and Carinaro
As for the site of Cassinetta – as the unions have communicated – the company management has quantified in 350 redundancies in the refrigerator factory, specifying however that with equal professionalism the various factories can be considered as communicating vessels. "All the assembly lines will remain, but the transition from rotating shifts to a single shift is expected, 31,5 million euros will be invested in the refrigerator factory, 75 million euros in the oven factory, 21 million euros in the microwave factory, 8,5 million euros for the installation of solar panels", explain the trade unions.
"As regards Melano – continues the unions' statement – the management of Beko reiterates the 68 redundancies; all current product ranges would be confirmed and indeed the possibility of adding a new model is being studied; the total investments amount to 62 million euros. Carinaro the mission of European spare parts centre is confirmed; 5 million euros of investments are planned also to host the new spare parts arriving from Türkiye; the redundancies remain 40”
Beko will not close the Comunanza factory
But Monday's meeting was also important to have confirmation that Beko, as Urso had assured upon returning from an official trip to Türkiye, the Comunanza factory in the Marche region will not close.
For this plant, Beko management has designed a scenario of production continuity, but with the presence of 80/100 redundancies out of a total of 320 employees; the slim washing machines would be discontinued, as well as the washer-dryers and the low-end washing machines; the concentration on the high-end would lead to the production from 630 thousand to 430 thousand pieces annual; are expected 15 million euros of investments.
Siena closes at the end of 2025
Unfortunately, for Siena the company's decision remains unchanged cease production at the end of the year; Beko has said it is available to seek an investor and to request social safety nets until the end of 2027. “Furthermore, the government has committed to helping us resolve the issue of the acquisition of the site by a public entity, in order to provide a concrete basis for the search for a reindustrialization hypothesis,” the unions explain.
However, among the total number of Italian redundancies there is a very weighty and silent piece of data, which is what sends most of the administrative staff, over 680, are at home. And here too the overall redundancies have been revised by about 50 units, so as to become 628 out of a staff of 1529 employees; investments are quantified at 78 million euros in transversal and infrastructure activities.
Beko's comment
“The negotiation was long, but we believe that there are solid foundations to continue the discussion in a constructive manner. We have already scheduled three more meetings and we are confident that the dialogue can evolve positively,” says Maurizio David Sberna, director of external relations at Beko Europe. “The discussion was in-depth and we expect that in the next meetings it can be further consolidated, with the aim of ensuring a sustainable and long-term future for Beko’s presence in Italy.” The negotiations – the union representatives who declared themselves dissatisfied responded – will continue on February 27, March 14 and 18.
Last January 30, Ragip Balcioglu CEO Beko Europe had underlined that the company was willing to review some parts of the closure plan, presenting a revised one. “But this must happen soon” he had declared. And the reason, or rather a series of reasons were already very present and pressing for the management of a group that must carry out a very complicated integration having acquired 75 percent of Whirlpool Emea, in an extremely difficult period economically and politically not only for Europe. And with duplicate factories of which the closure of two plants in Poland had already been decided.
The Asian giants are getting stronger
these months are decisive for European producers of white because in the face of a recovery in sales of majaps in Europe and Italy with a +1,1% according to data provided by Gfk, those who benefited were the Korean and Chinese brandsthe. The Italian factories in fact, according to what was communicated by Applia, they are recording a further 14 percent drop in production and a 9,1 percent decline in exports and a 0,3 percent decline in sell-in.
One positive note, however, concerns the 2025 which should mark A slight increase in sales across Europe – which have been stagnant for three years – and which has already seen a +15 percent in purchases of dryers in 2024. As for redundancies and closures of Italian factories, a lot depends on how the requests for Made in Italy appliances will go, that is, how the lines will work. As for the 2024 accounts, those of Arçeli-Beko closed with a very strong increase in turnover due to the contribution of sales of the acquired brands, Indesit, Hotpoint, Whirlpool. But it is the profits that have suffered and a lot compared to 2023: the net profit was in fact 1.689,08 million Try compared to 19.505,48 million Try of the previous year.
Third Midea factory in Egypt
The increasingly competitive nature of the sector is worrying, and rightly so. presence of Chinese giants in Southern Europe and nearby Egypt. For at least two years, the Chinese giants have been selling on world markets the enormous surplus of products that the domestic market does not buy. And this is causing a fall in the average prices of household appliances and in the profits of European competitors. In addition, Chinese industrial settlements in Southern Europe, Turkey and Egypt are also increasing. And it is precisely from'Egypt a news, completely ignored and worrying: the world's leading manufacturer of home technology, Midea, has recently opened a third large production site for appliances with an investment of 185 million
