Royal Philips Electronics NV (PHIA) said it will deepen cuts at a lighting factory in Belgium and eliminate an an additional 218 jobs in response to falling demand for conventional lamps and the rise of light-emitting diodes.
Oce North America Inc., the Trumbull-based servicer of printers and copiers, will lose 135 jobs in Connecticut as a result of consolidations taking place three years after being acquired by a Japanese company.
James Magrone, an Oce spokesman, said the cuts are part of an overall integration plan that has been developed over three years, since Canon Inc. bought the copier and office equipment company.
Qantas Airways is cutting 400 jobs, terminating 150 of its own workers and 250 contractor positions, due to over staffing at its line maintenance facility in Sydney.
Jobs were also being shed at Qantas Defence Services – which maintains the Australian Defence Force’s C130 Hercules aircraft – and as the carrier consolidated its engineering training facilities from Melbourne to Sydney.
German steel distributor Kloeckner & Co (KCOGn.DE), seeing no near-term respite from a sector slump and massive overcapacity, decided to cut 1800 jobs.
The steel sector has been hit by a slowdown in demand for cars, appliances and new buildings. Though the global manufacturing downturn eased last month, there are no signs yet of relief in the euro zone.
ING Groep NV, the Dutch bank and insurance company, revealed plans to cut 2,350 jobs after a sharp drop in third-quarter profits.
ING, one of Europe’s larger financial conglomerates by assets, said its net profit fell to (EURO)609 million ($783 million) from (EURO)1.69 billion a year ago. It attributed the decline primarily to “de-risking”—that is, selling assets at a book loss to eliminate the potential for bigger losses later.
Montreal-based rail equipment manufacturer Bombardier is cutting 1200 jobs from its plant in Germany.
The announcement came in Bombardier’s third-quarter financial report, which showed the rail division continues to face weak results. Bombardier also acknowledged a widely expected delay in the first flight of the new CSeries commercial jet until the first half of 2013.
Vestas Wind Systems is seeking to sell a stake of as much as 20 percent and said it’s reducing headcount by 3,000 to raise the staff cuts by the biggest wind turbine maker to almost a third over two years.
Ericsson plans to cut almost 10% of its Swedish workforce as it strives to remain competitive in the crowded telecommunication-equipment market.
The majority of the 1,550 cuts will be in the company’s main networks division and in research and development, sales and administration. More than 17,000 of the company’s 109,000 employees are based in Sweden.
The data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) confirms that the UK entered a double dip recession, having also contracted by 0.3% in the last three months of 2011.
The UK economy contracted by even more than first estimated in the first three months of 2012, with revised GDP figures showing a decline of 0.3%.
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