Industrial equipment maker Siemens to axe 7,800 jobs in cost-cutting drive

FRANKFURT - Industrial machinery maker Siemens AG says it will cut 7,800 administrative jobs worldwide as part of an effort to streamline the sprawling company and its many businesses.

Munich-based Siemens said in a statement Friday that 3,300 of the job losses will be in Germany.

Siemens CEO Joe Kaeser said the cuts were part of an ongoing restructuring whose aim was to "get the company back on a sustainable growth path and close the profitability gap to our competitors"

Siemens said the cuts would save 1 billion euros ($1.14 billion) this year alone that the company could put into growth initiatives such as research and development. As a result, it said overall head count would remain roughly the same.

Siemens had 341,000 employees at year-end in more than 200 countries.