Over 1,750 Employees of Siemens IT Services Face Impending Lay Off

Siemens, a leading global engineering and technology services company, revealed its plan to slash more than 1,750 workers across its worldwide operations in line with the company’s major restructuring scheme. The job cuts will be mostly concentrated in its IT Solutions and Services business since the division has been sold to an international information technology services company, Atos Origin, for an amount of 850 million (£721 million). According to the report, Siemens agreed to sell its IT services division to Atos Origin for a payment package that includes a five-year convertible bond (250 million), a 12.5 million Atos Origin shares worth around 414 million and cash in the amount of 186 million. In addition, the agreement also indicated that Siemens will hold about 15% share in Atos Origin for at least five years plus a seven-year, outsourcing contract allowing Atos Origin to operate Siemens’ IT infrastructure and applications worldwide.

The report also added that the upcoming job cuts will also affect the company’s home country, Germany. Siemens will eliminate about 650 redundancies. When asked about the details of the lay off in the UK, the company did not provide a clear breakdown of the job cuts but mentioned that it will remove those employees who have indirect functions such as “G&A” (general and administration).

The new partnership of Siemens and Atos Origin is predicted to play a major role in the European IT market, with their combined 2010 revenues of around 8.7billion and 78,500 employees worldwide. By 2013, both companies expect to generate revenue of approximately 10 billion annually.