The severe economic downturn facing Polish railway company Pkp Cargo is forcing the company to implement a massive restructuring, supervised by Polish consulting firm Zimmerman Filipiak. Furthermore, in June 2024, Pkp Cargo classified a third of its workforce as inactive for a year, cutting their pay by forty percent, and is reallocating several hundred employees to three companies: Polregio (regional passenger operator), PKP Intercity (the largest passenger operator in Poland), and PKP Intercity Remtrak (rolling stock maintenance).
However, this is not the end of the turmoil. At the beginning of July 2024, news emerged of a drastic reduction in staff: 4,142 workers, nearly thirty percent of the workforce, are to be let go. This reduction could begin on September 30, 2024. The current management attributes the crisis to poor management by their predecessors. Indeed, from 2019 to 2023, Pkp Cargo's revenue fell by 17%, with bulk transport halving and container transport dropping by 40%.
From 2015 to 2023, the company's market share dropped from 56% to 33%, and its market value plummeted from around one billion euros to 141 million euros, while liabilities reached one billion euros, with a debt of 470 million euros at the end of 2023. In the first quarter of 2024, Pkp Cargo reported a loss of 118.1 million zlotys (about 30 million euros), following a 44.5% drop in annual profits in 2023.
