LE LOCLE - Richemont is restructuring its Montblanc watchmaking operation in Le Locle, cutting six jobs and moving 17 employees to other companies within the luxury group, the Unia Neuchatel union confirmed on Thursday. Of the roughly 45 staff at the site, 23 have accepted or are negotiating a transfer, union secretary Solenn Ochsner told the AWP news agency. The cuts were finalised at the end of September.
Most of those moving stay inside the group, with Cartier among the destinations. A minority have agreed to join the Minerva manufacture in Villeret in the Bernese Jura, which Richemont acquired in 2006 and which works in the still-healthy high-end segment. Ochsner noted that the new terms of employment are not identical to the old ones, and that some staff face longer daily commutes.
The mid-range is where it hurts
Montblanc's watch line, established in 1997, sits in the entry and mid-range price segments, exactly where the industry's slowdown is biting hardest. Demand for watches costing a few thousand francs has sagged in key export markets, while the very top of the market has held up better. That split is reshaping staffing across the watch towns of the Jura arc, where suppliers live on volume in the middle of the price ladder.
Le Locle and its neighbours make their living on precisely that middle, which is why even small numbers resonate beyond the workshop door. The region has so far been spared the kind of broad layoffs seen in past downturns, but unions are watching component makers and subcontractors closely as orders thin toward the end of the year.
A two-speed Swiss economy
The contrast with other export sectors is stark. In the Basel life-sciences corridor, specialist hiring plans have held into the autumn, while in Zurich the argument is about whether UBS should stay in Switzerland at all. Watchmaking's problem is simpler and older: the customer for the mid-priced watch is hesitating, and no amount of cantonal policy fixes that by Christmas.