These are dark days for illumination specialist Signify, as the former Philips Lighting undergoes a large reorganization. According to a report from Eindhoven’s Dagblad, the company is shedding more than 700 positions around the world, with the Eindhoven and Amsterdam offices losing some 250 jobs. It doesn’t come as a complete surprise, as earlier, there were talks about a sizeable cutback at Signify’s R&D site on the High Tech Campus. But it looks like these rumors have been confirmed, with 60 people getting the ax from the company’s Eindhoven research departments. In addition to the job cuts in the Netherlands, Signify has also decided to shutter its US-based Mississippi factory, housing around 135 employees.
Citing trouble because of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the expectation that the global lighting market perhaps won’t rebound to 2019 levels until sometime in 2024, Signify feels the intervention is extremely necessary. Naturally, not everyone agrees and many feel the cuts are over-the-top. “We knew it was coming, but this is once again fierce,” says Jörg Sauer of VHP2, the trade union movement for highly trained personnel, in ED. “Particularly paying dividends to satisfy shareholders when many people have to leave – this causes a lot of resentment.”