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Electronics Production |

Update: Siemens gives details to worldwide job cuts

Siemens intends to make job cuts primarily in administration-related functions. Plans call for eliminating approximately 12,600 jobs worldwide. An additional 4,150 jobs will be affected by restructuring projects. Overall, 16,750 jobs will be affected by the planned cutbacks.

In Germany, about 5,250 jobs will be affected by the planned personnel reductions. The locations making the biggest contributions will be those with the most employees: Erlangen, Munich, Nuremberg and Berlin. “We want to begin negotiations with the employee representatives quickly in order to make the cuts in a way that will be as socially responsible as possible. In this connection, we intend to consider the full range of instruments at our disposal – for example, transfer companies and part-time preretirement schemes. Only as a last resort will we terminate employment contracts for operational reasons,” emphasized Siemens’ Chief Personnel Officer Siegfried Russwurm. In November 2007, Siemens announced its intention to reduce sales, general and administrative (SG&A) costs to a competitive level. Savings in personnel are also part of the program to reduce SG&A costs now that the company has considerably streamlined its top management level. The Managing Board has been reduced from eleven members to eight and the CEO principle introduced at the levels below. Substantial synergies are also being generated internally following the formation on January 1, 2008 of three new Sectors – Energy, Industry and Healthcare – from the company’s previous eight Groups. Siemens is bundling a large number of the administrative tasks of its roughly 70 Regional Companies into 20 Regional Clusters. By 2010, the number of Siemens’ legally separate entities will have been reduced from approximately 1,800 to fewer than 1,000. The Industry Sector is focusing on two measures. With its Mobility in Motion program, the Mobility Division is aiming to reach and sustain a medium-term profit margin of five to seven percent. Measures include establishing standardized platforms. In the course of comprehensive restructuring, a total of 2,500 jobs will be cut worldwide. Some 700 of these jobs are in sales and administrative functions, while about 1,800 are in engineering and production, primarily in Europe. As part of the restructuring program underway at the Electronic Assembly Systems Business Unit (EA) – the company’s pick-and-place machines business – since the fall of 2007, the Industry Sector is planning further measures to safeguard competitiveness. To provide EA with a flexible and effective setup in global competition, 330 jobs are slated for elimination by the end of the year through measures to further simplify processes and streamline the organization accordingly. The Healthcare Sector intends to cut 1,550 jobs in administration-related functions. Plans call for eliminating approximately 350 jobs in Germany and most of the remaining cuts will be made in the U.S. In connection with further restructuring measures, a maximum of about 1,250 additional positions will be eliminated. These cuts are expected to be made primarily in the Imaging & IT and Workflow & Solutions Divisions. Activities will focus on the continued development of future-oriented topics in order to enhance the company’s competitive position in the strategically important healthcare IT business. Further planned personnel measures due to special topics At the cross-Sector business Siemens IT Solutions and Services, plans call for eliminating around 550 sales and administrative jobs. These reductions are to be achieved, in particular, by cutting IT costs within the company. Further personnel adjustments will be necessary due to such factors as requirements for increased productivity when contracts with existing customers are renewed and declining demand in the area of software development. These cuts will affect roughly 500 more employees. In addition to the above-mentioned restructuring projects, Siemens plans to sell its Segment Industrie Montage Services (SIMS) in order to ensure the continuation of the unit’s service and assembly activities on a competitive basis. These plans will affect some 1,200 employees at 35 locations in Germany. Faster and more flexible, the resulting organization will be able to acquire new customers and achieve an improved cost position in price competition primarily with small to medium-sized companies.

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March 21 2024 8:48 am V22.4.9-1
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