Germany-Spanish turbine manufacturer Siemens Gamesa announced yesterday that it is cutting 2,900 jobs worldwide. The wind company made the announcement on Sept. 29. Most of the jobs will be eliminated in Denmark (800), Germany (300) and Spain (475).
“Such a decision is never easy, but now is the time to take necessary actions to get the company back on track for a sustainable future,” Siemens Gamesa CEO Jochen Eickholt said, justifying the drastic move. The savings program is part of the so-called “Mistral strategy,” which is intended to get the crisis-ridden wind group back on track.
Due to the record prices for raw materials, the supply chain chaos and internal problems, the situation is getting worse and worse. Eickholt had already announced in a Handelsblatt interview in June that there would be major job cuts as a result.
Although Siemens Gamesa is one of the largest wind companies in the world, and even the market leader at sea, business is poor. The balance of the last six years: several profit warnings, red figures and four different bosses. Just at the beginning of August, the turbine manufacturer had to lower its profit forecast again. “The situation remains tense. We see material costs continuing to go up, and at the same time we have long-term contracts that were concluded in 2021 with significantly lower prices,” Group CEO Eickholt said at the time.
Market leader Vestas and competitors such as Nordex, Enercon and GE Renewables have also been posting losses for months. And not just since record raw material prices, supply chain chaos and the Ukraine war have been weighing on business. There has been a fierce price war in the market for years. Above all, the switch from fixed state payments to free tendering systems, in which only the cheapest bidder is awarded the contract, has driven turbine manufacturers into ruinous competition.
