Munich (dpa) - Siemens plans to cut around 6,000 jobs worldwide, 2,850 of them in Germany. The recently weakening Digital Industries (DI) division is particularly affected, as the company announced.

Group CEO Roland Busch had already announced job cuts in the low to mid four-digit range in the fall, and now there are concrete figures. The reduction in Germany is to take place without compulsory redundancies.

5,600 jobs - 2,600 of them in Germany - are to be cut in the automation business, which is part of the Digital Industries division, by the end of September 2027. Among other things, it has been suffering from high inventory levels at customers and dealers for some time, leading to weak demand and poor capacity utilization.

Turnover in the automation business fell significantly. Most recently, however, the Group expected an improvement in the current year. Overall, business at Siemens is going well: in the first quarter, the Group made a profit of 2.1 billion euros.

Changing conditions in key markets made adjustments necessary, Siemens said. "The German market in particular has been in decline for two years. Capacities in Germany must therefore be adjusted." Overall, however, the number of employees in Germany will "tend to remain constant", as Siemens is recruiting in other, growing areas.

Bavaria could be particularly affected

There is no further information yet on where the jobs are to be cut in Germany. However, it seems likely that Bavaria will be particularly affected, as most of DI's plants are located there.

A further 450 jobs are to be cut by the end of September this year in the business with charging solutions for electric vehicles, which Siemens intends to spin off - 250 of them in Germany.

"There is currently strong price pressure on the market and limited growth potential for charging stations in the lower power range. The business is therefore focusing on market segments such as fast-charging infrastructure for depots and fleets as well as charging on the move," it said.

Criticism from the employee side

Criticism came from the employee side. "We have no understanding for the planned measures at DI and are surprised and annoyed at the massive number of planned redundancies," said Birgit Steinborn, Chairwoman of the General Works Council and Deputy Chairwoman of the Supervisory Board.

"If the One Tech Company is to be a growth program, then we demand that jobs are created sustainably instead of being cut in favor of the profit margin," she said. Last year, Siemens announced a program under this title that aims to bring units closer together, among other things.

The Second Chairman of IG Metall, Jürgen Kerner, who also sits on the Siemens Supervisory Board, also criticized the plans. "On the one hand, creating the future-oriented vision of a One Tech Company, and on the other, cutting thousands of jobs, is not something that can be communicated to the employees," he said.

"The trust that employees will be taken along on the journey through the transformation and into the new set-up is quickly shattered by such measures and is then difficult to repair," says Kerner. "Transformation is not achieved through downsizing, but through positive change - in other words, primarily further development and training."

Kerner said that redundancies for operational reasons were ruled out due to the safeguarding of locations and jobs. "The question is rather how to achieve the fundamentally changed corporate structure of the future through a radical downsizing. In our view, this cannot work."