Poacher turned Gamekeeper: E.ON redundancies – very bad timing

By Laurence Lee, head of media

Energy provider E.ON today announced it is making up to 800 job cuts in Essex. It’s unfortunate that this news came in the same week that we were presented with more evidence that the recession’s coming to an end. Inflation is likely to rise due to the government finding hundreds of millions for us to spend at Christmas, hence allowing the shops not to suffer the ignominy of having to cut prices too far.

Interest rates might go up (possibly bad news, especially for people with variable mortgages) but unemployment’s down as well, and that’s supposed to be the biggest lag. So I would imagine there’ll be some kind of economy round-up pieces on the radio and TV as the day goes on, with a finger in the air suggesting that probably we’re coming out of recession.

So with all these diary events which any PR can look at and forecast, what worse day to announce 600 job cuts and the closure of a plant, as E.ON did this morning. By itself it might not get much coverage, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it ends up getting more than expected by being the down side to an otherwise increasingly rosy picture – the warning that we’re not out of the woods yet and that there may be more surprises to come.

I don’t know about you, but I’d have thought that if job cuts truly are necessary you should announce them quietly, for example last thing on a Friday afternoon, when all the stock market traders are in the pub, the lobby’s not sitting and everyone’s talking about football. Doing it when you can expect good announcements in the economy seems like adding insult to injury.