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Siemens announces massive worldwide job cuts

By Tim Conneally, BetaNews

July 8, 2008, 6:44 PM

German electronics and engineering company Siemens was rumored end of June to be preparing a large-scale workforce reduction. Today the company announced the precise number who will be affected.

Over 16,750 jobs will be cut worldwide, shrinking the company's workforce by about 4%. It is estimated that this will save Siemens about €600 million a year until 2010, or €1.2 billion.

In March, the company unexpectedly announced it was cutting its quarterly earnings by €900 million ($1.4 billion), causing its stock value to take its biggest dive in 20 years. However, Siemens' CEO Peter Löscher maintained that Siemens would meet its goals for 2010.

Löscher is still relatively new to the chief executive office, coming into the position in May 2007 from pharmaceutical company Merck. He replaced Klaus Kleinfeld, who resigned from his position in the face of corruption and bribery scandals.

The company declined to specify the how many of the cuts will come from each individual country outside of Germany, but 5,250 of those terminated will be from German offices.

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By Gungistoker

posted Jul 9, 2008 - 7:11 PM

I received a job offer from a company a day before I was supposed to interview with Siemens and had to cancel the interview. Apparently I made the right decision.

Score: 0

By merlin666

edited Jul 9, 2008 - 10:39 AM

It's a bloated corporation that has totally lost connection with its core business. I am a shareholder and their annual reports are an incomprehensible mess. They need major restructuring for sure.

Score: 0

By preinterpost

posted Jul 9, 2008 - 8:24 AM

16k = 4% ? That means they'll be left with another 400k employees. Well maybe it's worth taking a look at the share price.

Score: 0

By Galway

posted Jul 9, 2008 - 7:21 AM

Never liked siemens, don't rate their equipment at all. I was coerced into trying the Fujitsu/siemens P1620 on a trial use for a few weeks and found it unbearable to use.

If the job losses gives them an incentive to be more competitive and make better kit then that's a start.

Score: 0

By DigitAl56K

posted Jul 8, 2008 - 11:58 PM

"Over 16,750 jobs will be cut worldwide"

"The company declined to specify how many of the cuts will come from outside of Germany, but 5,250 of those terminated will be from German offices."

I'm going to estimate that 16750 - 5250 = 11500 will come from outside of Germany...

Sad news for Siemens, their mobile phones were always my favorites. Shame you only get the cheap models, if any, in the US.

Score: 0

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