The announcement that Fresenius Medical Care (FMC) will become an independent stock corporation does not change the intention to cut a total of 5000,750 jobs in this division of the Fresenius Group, <> of them in Germany. This was expressly pointed out by the members of the Executive Board at their annual press conference on Wednesday.
Inga Janović
Editor in the regional section of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and responsible editor of the business magazine Metropol.
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Where exactly the jobs will be eliminated and how the cuts should take place has been negotiated since 2021, says Ralf Erkens, head of the Rhine-Main district at the responsible trade union IGBCE. It can be assumed that it is mainly about administrative positions, so the head office in Bad Homburg is particularly affected by the job cuts.
Erkens comments cautiously on the plans. So far, he knows nothing more than the announcement of CEO Michael Sen and Helen Giza, who has been responsible for FMC since the end of 2022. This had announced on Wednesday that it would present more details on the announced "deconsolidation" and the "concentration on the core business" in April.
According to trade unionist Erkens, the fundamental task of employee representatives remains to negotiate good solutions for both sides – i.e. for the employees who have to leave, but also for the colleagues who remain in the company. If the Board of Management obtains the approval of the Annual General Meeting for the conversion in the summer, the Works Council will ensure that the co-determination rights of the employees are also preserved in the new stock corporation.
Fresenius Medical Care employs more than 130,000 people worldwide, operates 42 production sites and around 4100 dialysis clinics. The most important market is the United States, where more than two-thirds of sales are generated. Nevertheless, there are currently no plans to relocate the headquarters from Bad Homburg, but good reasons for the current division, Giza emphasized on Wednesday. While the service business dominates in the USA, Europe is an important production location for FMC.