Siemens Rail Systems to Cut 44 Jobs

Siemens Rail Systems is not a common household name, at least not in most houses in the US. For those of you who are not familiar with the name here is a look at how the company describes itself, “The Siemens Rail Systems Division within the Infrastructure & Cities Sector is a leading international provider of rail vehicles and related services. Its headquarters are located in Berlin. The Rail Systems portfolio comprises the entire spectrum of rolling stock – including railway trains, metros and locomotives and even streetcars and light rail systems. To this end, the Division smoothly combines its expertise in the fields of mass transit, mainline and logistics transportation in order to offer comprehensive know how for eco-friendly, efficient and reliable rail vehicles that are already in revenue service in more than 40 countries worldwide. According to expert forecasts, the international rolling stock market will grow to approximately € 42 billion, and the world market for related services to approximately € 29 billion by 2016.”  So, as you can see the business is a sizeable business on the global scale.

The company has a manufacturing plant in the city of Sacramento, California. At that plant the company is going to be cutting back on 44 jobs in the location. The company is going to be cutting back what is a relatively small number of workers, since this location has about 800 workers at the current facility. So the cuts will be less than ten percent of the overall workers at the facility. On the bright side there is no reason why the company should have to worry much about the threat of a mass layoff. The company would have had to make at least six more job cuts in order to qualify the job cuts as a mass layoff action.

The company is not making any official statement about the job losses on its media relation’s page. The company did make a recent release about some of its sales, which seem to be very profitable. In the most recent release, “TriMet, the mass transit provider for the city of Portland, Oregon (USA), has awarded Siemens another order worth USD 73 million (around EUR 56 million) for eighteen S70 light rail cars. The vehicles will be manufactured entirely at Siemens’ rolling stock production plant in Sacramento, California. Some 80 per cent of the electricity required for production will be supplied by a two-megawatt solar power plant. The new light rail cars will be shipped out as of August 2014.” So the company is not in want of business.

Earlier this year the company made a much bigger contract. In that release the company said, “At the Sassnitz ferry port on the German Island of Ruegen, Siemens today embarked the first of 38 Desiro RUS regional multiple-unit trains bound for Russia. The “Petersburg” railway ferry is now shipping the five-unit train via the Baltic Sea to the seaport of Ust-Luga in Russia. From Ust-Luga, it will continue its journey by rail to a Russian Railways (RZD) depot in the Saint Petersburg area. The entire transport route from the Siemens factory in Krefeld to Saint Petersburg is around 2,700 kilometers long and will take about four weeks. Arrival is scheduled for March 7.” So, you have to wonder why a company that is making so much in the way of new contracts is going to get rid of workers?