908 new jobs created by MONDRAGON’s industrial division in 2016

The evolution of MONDRAGON’s Industrial Division showed a positive balance in 2016. The most outstanding aspect of the year is that 908 new mid-level jobs were created in the division, which now employs a total of 33,919 people. The job creation at this level is evenly distributed, as 414 of the jobs are in the local area and 494 at subsidiaries abroad.

The industrial staff as a whole totals 33,919 people, 21,793 of whom basically work in the Basque Autonomous Community and Navarra while 12,126 are employed at the cooperatives’ subsidiary companies abroad. 

The Chairman of MONDRAGON’s General Council, Íñigo Ucín, rates the Industrial Division’s work positively, affirming that its good performance “has involved continuing on the path of job creation”. He also highlighted the level of investment made, “which is over €280m and has been geared to starting up new production plants and increasing process efficiency to improve competitiveness”. 

Industrial employment has evolved very positively over the last few years, with over 3000 mid-level jobs created between 2014 and 2016 inclusive (1,904 in Spain and 1,114 abroad). During this period employment has also been arranged for practically all the 1,895 member workers affected by the shutdown of Fagor Electrodomésticos.

Profitability. With regard to profit, the initial estimate points at a figure of over €250m, on a par with last year’s data and confirming the profitability track record of the industrial businesses as a whole in recent years.

Over €280m of industrial investment was made in 2016, exceeding that of the previous year by 33%.

Sales. Sales totalled €5.037bn in 2016, which is fairly similar to the previous year’s figure. Despite the increased business, as reflected by the employment creation, sales have remained stable, mainly due to the fact that several plants abroad are at the launch stage and their turnover is expected to become consolidated over the next few years. The drop in raw materials costs, with an impact on sale prices, has also influenced this figure.

On analysing the sales it can be observed that 70.7% are international sales and the remaining 29.3% were made on the domestic market. Sales in Spain have grown again for the third year running, with a specific 1.9% improvement on those of last year.

The fact that production abroad now represents 28.6% of the total shows the consolidation of the Industrial Division companies’ international track record. Also contributing to the increase in this area are the new production plants opened in China (Maier and Copreci’s second plant), Mexico (Cikautxo and Fagor Ederlan), Romania (Cikautxo) and Orona’s acquisition of several companies in different European companies.

MONDRAGON’s global presence, with 9 corporate offices outside Spain, now totals 140 plants abroad.

Innovation and promotion. One of the main goals for 2017 is to create an “entrepreneurial ecosystem” bringing together all the corporation’s entrepreneurial agents with a view to coordinated interaction and knowledge and experience pooling, renewing the cooperatives’ current business. 

Another important aspect, associated with R&D at MONDRAGON’s industrial division, is that over 1,800 people worked exclusively in the R&D area at the various specialist technology centres.

MONDRAGON continues its innovative approach, which it encourages through inter-cooperation between the businesses, the technology centres and the university, creating a network able to generate new business in four key areas: advanced manufacturing, raw materials, big data and smart cities. 

Last year, just over €150m was earmarked to R&D by the cooperatives as a whole. Also, 12% of the industrial division’s sales last year were accounted for by new products and services that did not exist five years ago. Finally, another item to be taken into account is the number of patent families in force, which amount to over 450 and make up a quarter of all patents generated in the Basque Autonomous Community