BERLIN, June 27 (Xinhua) -- German chemical giant BASF will cut 6,000 jobs worldwide by 2021, the company announced on Thursday.
Around half of these job cuts would be in Germany, the majority of them at BASF's headquarters in Ludwigshafen, a BASF spokesperson told the German press agency (dpa).
"We want our customers to experience a new BASF. To achieve this, we have to live a new BASF. We will therefore continue to develop our organization to work more effectively and efficiently," said Martin Brudermueller, chairman of the board of executive directors of BASF.
BASF, which currently employs around 122,000 people worldwide, announced that "is streamlining its administration, sharpening the roles of services and regions and simplifying procedures and processes".
BASF was expecting the organizational changes to lead to savings of around 300 million euros (340.9 million U.S. dollars).
The first changes to the new company structure would take effect at the beginning of January 2020.
BASF saw a significant fall in profits at the beginning of the year after low levels of water in the River Rhine and a downturn in the German automotive industry.
The German chemical giant's operating result (EBIT) deteriorated by 22 percent to 1.76 billion euros in the first quarter. (1 euro = 1.14 U.S. dollars)
