Global giants plan thousands of job cuts to save costs

As companies battle the economic slowdown, the employees at large companies in the US and Europe seem to be facing the axe in a major way.

More than 135,000 job cuts have been announced by just about a dozen multi-national companies in past few months in their efforts to slash costs and those from the financial services space are among the worst hit.

However, the employees in India have largely been spared of these layoffs, although most of these companies have significant presence in the country.

Those having announced massive job cuts, running into thousands at each of these companies, include financial service giants like HSBC, Bank of America, Barclays, Credit Suisse and Lloyds Banking Group, as also consumer goods majors such as Whirlpool and Royal Philips Electronics.

Besides, mobile handset giant Nokia, BlackBerry maker Research In Motion, drugmaker Merck & Co, aircraft and defense giant Boeing and networking technology major Cisco have also announced large-scale job cuts in their operations.

Together, these companies have announced job cuts totalling more than 1,35,000 in their operations across the world, but the impact on India is estimated to be for less than 1,000 employees.

Individually, home appliance maker Whirlpool last week said it plans to reduce its workforce by more than 5,000 people in North America as part of its efforts to save annually $400 million by the end of 2013.

Consumer electronics giant Royal Philips Electronics, which has reported a slump in third quarter earnings as a result of loss at its TV division, has said it would cut 4,500 jobs globally as part of a cost saving programme.

Announcing the job cuts earlier this month, it did not rule out the possibility of this exercise affecting employees in India.

Philips, which employed about 120,582 people globally at the end of September including about 9,000 in India, said job cuts are part of a plan to save $1.1 billion.

Earlier in August, UK-based HSBC said it would trim its workforce by 30,000 people globally. Although, it had already cut 5,000 jobs following restructuring of operations in Latin America, the US, Britain, France and West Asia and that it would cut another 25,000 between now and 2013.

However, the bank ruled out job cuts in India, saying the country is a strategic market and one of the key profit centres and that it is in fact finding it difficult to offset the high attrition rates.