BERLIN (AP) -- German industrial conglomerate Siemens AG said Thursday it will cut 4,200 jobs worldwide at its information technology unit as it restructures the business.
The company wants to put Siemens IT Solutions and Services, or SIS, "on a solid long-term foundation," said the business's acting chief executive, Christian Oecking.
The plan calls for the job cuts -- out of a current workforce of 35,000 -- to be made "by 2011," Siemens said in a statement. About 2,000 of the job cuts will come in Germany.
The company "will exhaust all possibilities for voluntary measures," and will immediately open consultations with employee representatives, Siemens said. It added that it hopes to achieve some of the cuts by not renewing temporary contracts.
Siemens said it plans to make additional investments of more than euro500 million ($688 million) in the business by 2012, and that the IT business's organization will be "considerably simpler" in future.
Siemens, based in Munich, decided in December to carve out the IT division and said it aims to have the conditions in place for it to be a standalone operating business by the start of the next fiscal year on Oct. 1.
The IT carveout is motivated in part by "the need to provide the labor-intensive business with considerably more flexible and market-oriented structures," Siemens said.
Siemens shares were down 0.4 percent in Frankfurt at euro71.61.
