Philips to fire another 6,000 employees worldwide by 2025
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Dutch health technology giant Philips joins the series of companies that are laying off employees and imposing financial cuts.
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Philips logo (Reuters)
Dutch technology giant Philips announced on Monday that it would reduce its global workforce by 6,000 employees by 2025, in addition to previously announced job cuts.
"In addition to the reduction of its workforce by 4,000 roles announced in October 2022, which is being implemented as planned, Philips will reduce its workforce by an additional 6,000 roles globally by 2025, of which 3,000 will be implemented in 2023 in line with the relevant local regulations and processes," the company said in a statement.
The company explained that reducing the workforce was due to the need for restructuring under a new high-performance strategy. The company faced serious losses in 2022 caused by the recall of Respironics breathing devices.
"Strengthening patient safety and quality is Philips’ highest priority. This includes completing the Respironics recall and test program in 2023 and managing the impact of the proposed consent decree, as well as the ongoing investigation by the US Department of Justice and the litigation related to the Respironics recall," the company added.
As of December 2022, Philips employed around 77,000 people globally.
Philips is not the first company to lay off employees and impose financial cuts. The latest is Spotify Technology, the Swedish music streaming giant, which planned to announce layoffs last week.
Thousands of tech jobs have been eliminated in the last year as falling advertising income and recession fears trigger reevaluations of headcounts that soared during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Earlier this month, Amazon's Chief Executive Andy Jassy announced that the retail giant plans to cut more than 18,000 jobs under the pretext of economic uncertainty, and that the company hired too rapidly during the pandemic.
He said the announcement was made suddenly "because one of our teammates leaked this information externally."
"Between the reductions we made in November and the ones we're sharing today, we plan to eliminate just over 18,000 roles," CEO Andy Jassy said in a statement to his employees, adding that the company was "deeply aware that these role eliminations are difficult for people, and we don’t take these decisions lightly."
