As of: February 26, 2024, 3:06 p.m
By: Lisa Mayerhofer
Comments
Press
Split
The Bayer Cross, the company's logo, lights up on the Bayer factory premises.
© Thomas Banneyer/dpa/Symbolic image
The pharmaceutical company Bayer wants to save – also on jobs.
The company is stepping on the gas, especially with the job cuts program.
Leverkusen – The agricultural chemical and pharmaceutical group Bayer has to save money.
To this end, the company presented its workforce with an extensive job reduction program in January.
It is now clear how urgently the restructuring is being carried out at Bayer - many jobs are to be eliminated.
Bayer wants a new organizational structure and job cuts
The new CEO Bill Anderson wants to change the group structure - he has already loudly criticized the fact that there are up to twelve hierarchy levels in the company between him and the customer.
When introducing the new organizational model, all areas of the group will now be examined for possible savings.
The workflows should be made more efficient.
Jobs that are considered unnecessary will disappear.
How many there will be is still unclear.
Bayer currently has 22,200 employees in Germany and 101,000 worldwide.
The usefulness of management functions should also be examined abroad.
The new organizational structure, which provides for fewer decision-making levels than before, is expected to be installed by the end of 2025.
Employees whose jobs are lost should be offered severance pay.
Bayer wants to use bonuses to encourage employees to leave
There are two internal programs for those affected, as the
Handelsblatt
reports, citing insiders.
The first is called “AHV 56-” and applies to employees up to 56 years of age.
They receive 1.2 times their gross monthly salary times years of service.
There are social supplements for married people and their offspring, according to the newspaper.
There is also a sprinter bonus, which shows how important it is to Bayer that many employees leave the company as quickly as possible.
With this you will receive severance payments with a factor of 1.5 if you accept and leave within six months.
A minimum of eight and a maximum of 35 years of service are counted - so a maximum of 52.5 monthly salary severance pay is possible.
The second program is called “Flexi-AHV 57+” and applies to affected employees aged 57 and over who have already paid into statutory pension insurance for at least 35 years.
In this case, you could receive the severance payment monthly for six years - the guideline here is also the gross salary plus supplements.
According to the works council, anyone who has saved a lot of working time can even have Bayer's payments last until they enter regular retirement, as the
Handelsblatt
reports.
According to the newspaper, the offers for severance pay at Bayer are higher than usual.
My news
Because of pensions: economics calculates with traffic lights – read “Will lead us into the abyss”.
With this trick, pensioners pay significantly less for car insurance
USA is now hunting Putin's henchmen - to the annoyance of the Kremlin
Pension increase in summer 2024: Heil gives the first forecast for pensioners
Thousands of employees can look forward to a special payment for February's payroll
Retirement age for those born in 1960: You're still in luck
The company cannot simply throw out employees in this country, as is the case in the USA: dismissals for operational reasons are excluded until the end of 2026, so more job cuts could only occur in three years if the severance pay program does not prove to be sufficiently efficient.
No box office hits?
Gloomy prospects for Bayer
Bayer itself did not want to comment on the severance pay programs.
The pharmaceutical company is struggling with a bleak outlook due to a lack of promising box office hits.
For years, the anticoagulant Xarelto and the eye drug Eylea brought billions into the coffers.
But their patents are gradually expiring in the various markets, which means that revenues are falling - copycat products from competitors are putting the German company under pressure.
“Bayer is currently in a difficult situation for various reasons,” says labor director and Bayer board member Heike Prinz.
With material from dpa