BASF cuts 3,000 jobs in Ludwigshafen

Dhe chemical company BASF plans to cut 6,000 jobs worldwide by the end of 2021, 3,000 of them in Germany alone. The majority are located in Ludwigshafen, a BASF spokesman said on Thursday. The jobs are to be eliminated in the course of a corporate restructuring by the end of 2021, the chemical company said. Administration should be streamlined, procedures and processes simplified. BASF wants to save 300 million euros. The first changes to the new group structure would come into force in early January 2020. However, BASF will still need additional employees for production and digitization, “but depending on future growth rates,” it said.

Last week the CEO of the group Martin Brudermüller, in an interview with the F.A.Z. indicated that the group had to let employees go in the course of its tight cost corset. “We expect the number of employees in the BASF Group to be at the end of 2019, which should be below the previous year’s level,” said Brudermüller at the time.

Then on Thursday he said: “When building the new organization, we will concentrate on consistently leveraging synergies, reducing interfaces and enabling more flexibility and creativity,” explained Brudermüller. “We will continue to develop our organization to work more effectively and efficiently.”