Unilever to close Vlaardingen facility; 800 jobs in danger

Unilever is closing their premises in Vlaardingen by April 2019 as it is opening a new facility in Wageningen. Some of the nearly 800 Vlaardingen jobs will be moved to Wageningen, NU.nl reports. 

Unilever research activities in Germany's Heilbronn and Poland's Poznan to the new facility in Wageningen. The new facility will employ a total of 550 people.

According to NU.nl, 300 jobs are moving from Vlaardingen to Wageningen. 200 others are moving to another location in Rotterdam and another 200 are moving to Britain. The other about 100 jobs are not accounted for. It is not clear how many employees will be able to move with their jobs, as Wageningen and Britain at least are far away from their homes in Vlaardingen.

The new research facility is set to open in April 2019. According to Jan Zijderveld, president of Unilever Europe, the move is an effort to keep up wit the innovation climate in the Netherlands' agri-food sector. The new location will collaborate with the University of Wageningen and should strengthen Unilever's innovation.

Union FNV director Marjolein Dubbelaar called the news "completely ridiculous" to the newspaper. "Some of the 800 people must come to Wageningen. That's over a hundred kilometers away. Or they have to go to other locations in the Netherlands or even to the United Kingdom. You can not ask that of your employees? These are people with families and responsibilities."