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SAP headquarters in Germany
Photo: Ralph Orlowski / REUTERS
According to a newspaper, 2,600 of the 8,000 jobs worldwide will be eliminated in Germany as part of the restructuring at SAP. On Friday, the “Handelsblatt” cited an internal email from the European works council to employees. 4,100 positions in the committee's area of responsibility are affected.
The works council therefore criticized the restructuring as a cost-cutting measure. Management did not adequately justify the business logic and did not provide accurate information about inefficiencies. SAP said most affected employees would be informed in the coming weeks. The process should be completed by the end of the first quarter of 2025.
CEO Christian Klein said at the end of January that around 8,000 of the more than 105,000 jobs would be affected by the restructuring of the company. The background is an increased use of artificial intelligence (AI). At the same time, Europe's largest software house is investing additional money in this technology. Since hiring is taking place in promising areas at the same time, the total number of employees is expected to remain the same, said Klein. At the time, SAP estimated the cost of the conversion at around two billion euros.
The Walldorf-based company had already cut 3,000 jobs in January 2023 in order to concentrate more on the traditional core business around corporate management software. At that time, SAP introduced its own products such as the AI assistant Joule, which is intended to make it easier for users to complete typical tasks in companies. CEO Klein wants to generate more than 21.5 billion euros in sales in the cloud sector by 2025.
Reuters/dpa-AFX/löw