Siemens plans to cut about 6900 jobs across its businesses supplying the power generation and oil and gas industries, which have been hit by the rapid growth of renewable energy.
Siemens will make the cuts at its Power and Gas division, as well as at its Process Industries and Drives division, which makes large mechanical drives for oil and gas extraction and turbines. They will represent close to 2 per cent of the company's global workforce.
"The power generation industry is experiencing disruption of unprecedented scope and speed," Siemens management board member Lisa Davis said in a statement on Thursday. "Today's action follows a nearly three-year effort to right-size the business for this changing marketplace."
Aside from loss-making wind power venture Siemens Gamesa , Process Industries and Drives was Siemens's least profitable business last quarter, with a profit margin of just 2.9 per cent.
Siemens is also shedding operations to remodel itself as an industrial software company. It is listing its healthcare unit and putting its wind and rail businesses into joint ventures.
The announcement follows a meeting with labour representatives at which Siemens outlined for the first time the scale of a planned restructuring of its power division.
Siemens said roughly half of the job cuts would be in Germany, which is likely to be unpopular with politicians currently trying to form a government.
