Philips Electronics cuts another 2,200 jobs
Baku, September 11 (AZERTAC). Philips Electronics stepped up its cost-cutting drive on Tuesday and said more jobs would go as part of a drastic overhaul of its business, which began to turn around in the first half after losing 1.3 billion euros in 2011.
Ahead of an investor event in London, Chief Executive Frans van Houten said another 2,200 jobs would be cut, but a spokesman for the Dutch company added that most would be outside the Netherlands, which holds a national election on Wednesday where job losses are among the main campaign issues.
Philips, maker of consumer electronics, medical equipment, and lighting systems, announced the first round of 4,500 job cuts in October, 1,200 of them on home turf. At the end of the second quarter Philips had 121,801 employees worldwide, 14,000 of them in the Netherlands.
In his first year at the top, Van Houten started to reshape the company where he had spent most of his working life, including its corporate culture - largely considered consensus-driven and cautious - which he says isn`t entrepreneurial enough.
In his first year as CEO, he issued two profit warnings, reset financial targets, cut thousands of jobs, replaced his entire top executive team and, eventually, hived off the loss-making TV business.
At 0848 EDT Philips shares were down 0.58 percent at 18.92 euros, while the local AEX index was down 0.43 percent.
Like many other electronic firms looking to cut overhead costs, Japan`s Sharp also said on Tuesday it would trim fixed costs by cutting salaries.
As expected, Philips didn`t give a detailed outlook for the remainder of the year on Tuesday, but confirmed it was set to meet its previous guidance for sales growth of between 4 and 6 percent in 2013, a margin on earnings before interest, tax and amortization of 10 to 12 percent and a return on invested capital of 12 to 14 percent.
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