Siemens plans layoffs next year

Siemens plans to lay off 15,000 next year. One-third of layoffs will come from Germany. According to reports, the massive layoffs are not unrelated to Siemens’ continued earnings decline in recent years. Since the last fiscal year, Siemens has experienced a number of profitable crises and caused the company's stock price to continue to decline. Earlier this year, Siemens CEO Peter Loescher was also dismissed because of poor performance.

At the end of last year, Luo Xude had drafted the company’s cost reduction plan. At the end of last year, Luo Xude had released a global cost-saving plan totaling as much as 4 billion yuan, not only to layoffs, but also to shut down some offices around the world and spin off some industries, such as photovoltaics. Cheng Meizhao, CEO of Siemens Northeast Asia and President and CEO of Siemens China, once said that this plan to reduce expenditures of 4 billion euros has not involved China's specific plans for the time being.

A Siemens spokesman said that Siemens has reached an agreement with the union about half of the layoffs, and the other half will follow suit. The spokesperson added that Siemens’ announcement of layoffs is intended to end the market’s speculation about the number of layoffs. But so far, Siemens has not implemented layoffs. Siemens has previously stated that it does not intend to make mandatory layoffs, but instead rely on the natural loss of employees and voluntary demobilization. The spokesperson also said that for the German market, there will be approximately 2,000 jobs in the industrial sector and 1400 positions in the energy and infrastructure sectors. At present, Siemens is actively negotiating with the trade unions and trying to reach a relatively complete compensation plan.

The total number of employees Siemens expects to conclude this fiscal year on September 30 is approximately 370,000, which is the same as last year.