Richemont Planning Job Cuts as Luxury Watches See Slump in Sales

(IDEX Online) – Luxury products giant Richemont plans to axe 210 watchmaking jobs in Switzerland as high-end watch sales drop across the world.

Richemont plans to cut the workforce of two of its watch-making maisons, Vacheron Constantin and Piaget. The firm plans to cut 40 jobs in the Joux Valley, a rural area about 40 miles (60 kilometers) from Geneva that’s home to luxury timepiece makers including Audemars Piguet, Blancpain, Jaeger-LeCoultre and Breguet, Bloomberg reports.

Swiss watchmakers saw exports record the biggest monthly drop in seven years in October, with plummeting demand in nearly every major market across the globe. The decline has come as a shock to an industry that has been producing more than 20 million timepieces annually for two decades.

Labor unions are staging demonstrations. Around 60,000 people work in the watch-making sector, with many based in small towns, meaning job cuts will affect other local businesses.

The fall in demand in Asia, due particularly to a crackdown on corruption by Chinese authorities on luxury gift giving, has spread to Europe and the U.S. this year. That has led Richemont to buying back unsold inventory from retailers and to change its focus to more affordable pieces, according to the report.