Philips announced to fire over 6,000 employees after cutting 4,000 jobs
The beginning of 2023 was unnerving for those in the tech sector. In 2023, Google and Microsoft both announced large-scale layoffs after Amazon, one of the first corporations to do so. After laying off 4,000 workers in October of last year, healthcare technology giant Philips has now revealed its intention to terminate nearly 6,000 staff members. Due to the mounting returns of its defective sleep respirators, the company suffered losses. It consequently decided to reduce the number of work roles.
According to AFP, Roy Jakobs, the CEO of Philips, announced the layoffs and noted that 2022 has been a challenging year for the business and that they are taking “strong actions” to improve their execution and performance.
Only 50% (3,000) of the workforce will receive a pink slip this year, despite the company’s overall aim to fire over 6,000 individuals. Additionally, Jakobs stated that the business would put its efforts toward completing the Respironics recall and strengthening our patient safety and quality management.
The corporation reported net losses of 105 million euros (about nine billion INR) for the fourth quarter of 2022 and 1.6 billion euros for the entire previous year, according to the AFP article. The recall was largely to blame for these losses.
The company had said in a statement, “As a result of extensive ongoing analysis following this announcement, on June 14, 2021, the company issued a recall notification (U.S. only) / field safety notice (Outside of U.S.) for specific affected devices. The notification informs customers and users of potential impacts on patient health and clinical use related to this issue. Possible health risks include exposure to degraded sound abatement foam, for example, caused by unapproved cleaning methods such as ozone, and exposure to chemical emissions from the foam material. High heat and high humidity environments may also contribute to foam degradation in certain regions. The company has developed a comprehensive plan to replace the current sound abatement foam with a new material that is not affected by this issue, and has already begun this process.”
