FRANKFURT: Siemens will cut jobs at its wind and solar power units as well as in its new Infrastructures and Cities business as part of a drive to cut costs in a weakening economy, a German magazine said.
The bulk of job cuts at Siemens would likely be in management and administrative functions, Monthly Manager Magazin reported on Wednesday, citing no sources.
A spokesman for Siemens said an outline of planned savings would be presented to management in early October and would be made public when the industrial conglomerate publishes its annual results on Nov. 8.
He declined further comment. Siemens, Germany's biggest company by market value, reported a big drop in new orders in July as customers put off investments due to Europe's economic crisis, saying full-year goals would be hard to meet.
The renewable energy business - comprising solar, wind and hydro power - recorded a 40 percent drop in new orders in the nine months through June, which Siemens blamed on fewer large orders in Germany. Siemens said it expected pricing pressure to continue in coming quarters. Profit at the business was down by just over a third in the period.
In Germany, the expansion of offshore wind power projects has been delayed by regulatory and financial hurdles, and the solar industry there has been rattled by consolidation that has driven a number of companies out of business.
In the United States - where cheap natural gas and the looming expiry of a key U.S. wind tax credit are hurting the industry - Siemens is already cutting 615 jobs at factories producing windmills.
The Infrastructure and Cities sector - founded less than a year ago to tap into demand for new ways to handle mobility and power supply in growing urban areas - also saw its orders and profits decline in the nine months through June.
Orders were down by almost a quarter because a year-earlier 3.7 billion euro train order was not repeated, while profits were hurt by rising R&D expenses.
Chief Executive Peter Loescher has said Siemens needs to cut costs and become leaner, and German media reports have said the company was in internal talks to cut thousands of jobs.
Manager Magazin also said that Siemens may review whether it needs offices in 190 countries, as it has now. Most of Siemens' revenue comes from only about two dozen countries, it said.
At the end of June, Siemens had 410,000 employees, of whom 129,000 were based in Germany.
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