Description:

Troubled Niort-based company CAMIF gave employees confirmation on Wednesday 27^th August of their intention to cut the workforce by one third.  CAMIF, France's third biggest mail order retailer, brought together employees at a general assembly at the Niort site to deliver the bad news.   It is expected that the CAMIF Particulieres arm of the company will be most affected, with an expected 365 job cuts from the 785 strong workforce.

The head office, Camif SA, will lose 144 employees (out of 200), with many of the functions being contracted out.  Despite everything, a trimmed-down new catalogue has just left the printing-press, illustrating the repositioning of Camif Particuliers towards average and top-of-the-range furniture, with many sections of the publication left out altogether.

Rumours of job cuts were first circulated in March 2007, and were met with a day of industrial action by 200 employees, but the company has been in decline for a number of years, with year-on-year losses since 2004.

La CAMIF has the status of a cooperative, and is jointly owned by three French groups, MAIF, MGEN and CASDEN, specialising in insurance and banking services to public sector workers.  The company was founded in 1947, and sells household appliances, furniture and furnishings as well as an extensive range of multi-brand garments and sportswear.  Mail-order activities currently generate more than half of its total turnover, making it France's third-largest mail order company.