In a sign that photovoltaic equipment suppliers face a near-impossible market in the near future, Manz has begun cutting jobs from its photovoltaic operations in Germany. The company also aims to layoff part of its international staff, reports the newspaper "Frankfurter Rundschau" (Saturday edition). According to the report a further 38 staff in Slovakia and Hungary will be laid off. A corporate spokesperson confirmed this information.
A total of 31 jobs in Slovakia and seven in Hungary will be cut. In addition, approximately 100 other staff in Asia have been dismissed this year, Manz spokesman Axel Bartmann told photovoltaik, the German-language sister publication of pv magazine.
The photovoltaic equipment supplier from Reutlingen, in Germanys south, explained the move with the constantly low level of new investments in new production machinery for the solar industry. In the course of the layoffs existing overcapacities would also be reduced.
"I regard the structural optimization measures that have now been taken as an important and necessary step toward ensuring the future survivability of our company. I very much personally regret the first layoffs in our 25-year corporate history we even hired additional staff in the crisis year of 2009," noted Dieter Manz, founder, chairman of the board and CEO at Manz AG.
In its report on the first nine months of 2012, Manz complained about the strong decline in investments in the solar industry. While the other divisions at Manz generated profits, the photovoltaic segment accounted for an EBIT loss of more than 17 million (US$22 million).
According to information provided by Manz, the share of the photovoltaic division in the companys gross sales amount to only approximately ten percent. Last year it constituted approximately 30 percent of total sales. Apart from photovoltaic machines, Manz also manufactures batteries and displays
Translated by Alan Faulcon and edited by Jonathan Gifford.
Popular content
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
Share
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.