Portugal Signed Off on Just 300 of the 500 Subsidised Exits MEO Sought in Its 1,200-Job Restructuring

When the government stamped MEO — the consumer brand of Altice Portugal — with the special status that lets a large employer push workers out faster than the law normally allows, it opened the door to roughly 1,200 departures by the end of 2026. Newly surfaced documents now show how the state used that door: MEO asked to send 500 employees out through subsidised exits that unlock unemployment benefit, and the government authorised only 300.

The detail, reported by ECO on 11 August 2026 from the official paperwork, sits inside a restructuring the company has been running since 2025. Back in June, the government had already granted MEO the legal designation of empresa em reestruturação (company under restructuring), a status that cleared the way for about 1,200 mutual-agreement exits before year-end. What was not public until now is the size of the specific request the company made — and by how much the state trimmed it.

Why the 500-versus-300 gap matters

Not all of MEO's 1,200 planned departures are the same. The company expects roughly 600 to leave through rescisão por mútuo acordo (mutual-agreement termination) and about 500 through pré-reforma (early retirement). The contentious number is the slice of mutual-agreement exits that come with access to the subsídio de desemprego (unemployment benefit) — a state-funded payment that a worker who leaves "by agreement" can normally only claim in limited circumstances.

Ordinarily, the law caps how many such subsidised exits a company can arrange each year at a handful of workers. The restructuring status is what lets an employer blow past that ceiling. According to the documents, MEO first filed its request in July 2025, at which point Social Security noted the standard quota was already exhausted. The authorisation that followed — a government order granting the restructuring status, valid through 30 June 2026 — set the figure at 300, not the 500 the company had sought.

What MEO gets out of it

MEO is running the programme, branded "Horizonte" (Horizon), as a cost and modernisation exercise. The company employed 6,286 people as of Social Security data from July 2025, and it expects the departures to save around €45 million a year at the operating-profit level. Many of the workers leaving have long tenures — an average of 25 to 30 years — the kind of senior payroll that weighs most on costs.

The backdrop is a business still climbing out of heavy losses. Altice Portugal reported a net loss of €97.2 million for 2024, an improvement on the roughly €167 million lost the year before. Chief executive Ana Figueiredo has framed the overhaul as a "responsible and transparent" modernisation, driven by digitalisation and the pressures of artificial intelligence, and the company says it has hired around 500 workers with science-and-technology profiles over the past three years even as it thins its longer-serving ranks.

A window into how Portugal's labour rules actually work

For anyone employed in Portugal, this is a rare, documented look at a mechanism most workers never see up close: the state can grant a big company "restructuring" status that lets it route staff onto taxpayer-funded unemployment benefit well beyond the normal legal limit. Here, the government did use that power — but it also pushed back, cutting the company's ask by two in every five.

The restructuring status was not waved through without friction. The trade-union confederations UGT and CGTP and the tourism employers' body CTP opposed granting it, according to the file, while the industry and farming employer confederations, the SME agency IAPMEI and Social Security did not object. That split — unions resisting a route that thins headcount, employers and the state comfortable with it — is the usual shape of these decisions.

What it means for people in Portugal

• If you are a MEO or Altice employee. The subsidised-exit route is capped at 300 places, not 500, so competition for an "agreed" departure with unemployment-benefit access is tighter than the company proposed. The wider 1,200-person plan still runs through December, split between mutual-agreement exits and early retirement.
• If you are weighing an "agreed" exit anywhere. A mútuo acordo departure only opens the door to unemployment benefit in specific, documented cases — which is exactly why the restructuring-status quota exists. Get the paperwork right before signing.
• If you are a MEO customer. Nothing changes on your bill or service today. But a provider cutting a fifth of its workforce and €45 million in annual cost is one to watch on call-centre waits and service quality.
• The bigger labour picture. The cuts land while national unemployment sits at 5.3%, its lowest since 2011 — a tight market that makes it easier for departing staff to move on, and easier for the state to sign off on the exits.

MEO's overhaul is not finished, and the numbers may yet shift as the December deadline nears. But the 500-to-300 trim is a reminder that "restructuring" in Portugal is not a blank cheque: the company sets the ambition, and the state — quota in hand — sets the limit.