A string of suicides at the state-run post office, La Poste, has led its boss to announce new measures in an effort to restore calm, although unions are angry he did not go further.

"/> A string of suicides at the state-run post office, La Poste, has led its boss to announce new measures in an effort to restore calm, although unions are angry he did not go further.

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ECONOMY

La Poste aims to halt wave of suicides

A string of suicides at the state-run post office, La Poste, has led its boss to announce new measures in an effort to restore calm, although unions are angry he did not go further.

La Poste aims to halt wave of suicides
Frédéric Bisson

In the last six months, three employees have killed themselves at work.

The most recent, a 42-year-old executive, left a note complaining that “for three years, I have the impression of being harassed and cornered by my superiors.”

An unofficial list by employees alleges there have been five suicides and one attempted suicide sine January alone. 

These are in addition to eleven suicides in 2011 and 17 in 2010.

La Poste is eager to avoid the fate that hit France Telecom where more than 60 employees were believed to have committed suicide over a three-year period due to work pressures.

The controversy forced deputy chief executive Louis-Pierre Wenes out of his job in 2009.

On Monday, the head of La Poste, Jean-Paul Bailly, announced four measures he hopes will help the situation.

“A big dialogue around work” will be launched, he said, as well as a series of discussions with unions to put in place “concrete measures.”

A mediator will also be appointed who can take decisions on individual situations.

However, unions were disappointed that the measures did not include a suspension of the company’s ongoing reform programme.

“The transformation of the company cannot stop,” said Bailly. “There will not be a pause.”

Unions reacted angrily to the news.

“We are sceptical about these measures,” Bernard Dupin of the CGT union told newspaper 20 Minutes.

“We wonder if management has really taken account of what’s going on in the organisation.”

The SUD-PTT union denounced “four miserable little measures” in a statement and said it would go directly to the government, major shareholder in La Poste.

The union said the government “could not stay silent” on the matter.

 

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ECONOMY

How is Denmark’s economy handling inflation and rate rises?

Denmark's economy is now expected to avoid a recession in the coming years, with fewer people losing their jobs than expected, despite high levels of inflation and rising interest rates, The Danish Economic Council has said in a new report.

How is Denmark's economy handling inflation and rate rises?

The council, led by four university economics professors commonly referred to as “the wise men” or vismænd in Denmark, gave a much rosier picture of Denmark’s economy in its spring report, published on Tuesday, than it did in its autumn report last year. 

“We, like many others, are surprised by how employment continues to rise despite inflation and higher interest rates,” the chair or ‘chief wise man’,  Carl-Johan Dalgaard, said in a press release.

“A significant drop in energy prices and a very positive development in exports mean that things have gone better than feared, and as it looks now, the slowdown will therefore be more subdued than we estimated in the autumn.”

In the English summary of its report, the council noted that in the autumn, market expectations were that energy prices would remain at a high level, with “a real concern for energy supply shortages in the winter of 2022/23”.

That the slowdown has been more subdued, it continued was largely due to a significant drop in energy prices compared to the levels seen in late summer 2022, and compared to the market expectations for 2023.  

The council now expects Denmark’s GDP growth to slow to 1 percent in 2023 rather than for the economy to shrink by 0.2 percent, as it predicted in the autumn. 

In 2024, it expects the growth rate to remain the same as in 2003, with another year of 1 percent GDP growth. In its autumn report it expected weaker growth of 0.6 percent in 2024.

What is the outlook for employment? 

In the autumn, the expert group estimated that employment in Denmark would decrease by 100,000 people towards the end of the 2023, with employment in 2024  about 1 percent below the estimated structural level. 

Now, instead, it expects employment will fall by just 50,000 people by 2025.

What does the expert group’s outlook mean for interest rates and government spending? 

Denmark’s finance minister Nikolai Wammen came in for some gentle criticism, with the experts judging that “the 2023 Finance Act, which was adopted in May, should have been tighter”.  The current government’s fiscal policy, it concludes “has not contributed to countering domestic inflationary pressures”. 

The experts expect inflation to stay above 2 percent in 2023 and 2024 and not to fall below 2 percent until 2025. 

If the government decides to follow the council’s advice, the budget in 2024 will have to be at least as tight, if not tighter than that of 2023. 

“Fiscal policy in 2024 should not contribute to increasing demand pressure, rather the opposite,” they write. 

The council also questioned the evidence justifying abolishing the Great Prayer Day holiday, which Denmark’s government has claimed will permanently increase the labour supply by 8,500 full time workers. 

“The council assumes that the abolition of Great Prayer Day will have a short-term positive effect on the labour supply, while there is no evidence of a long-term effect.” 

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