EMBATTLED Dutch medical tech maker Philips said today it will slash 6,000 more jobs worldwide after fresh losses caused by a massive recall of faulty sleep respirators.

Chief executive Roy Jakobs announced the “difficult, but necessary further reduction of our workforce” by 2025, which comes just three months after it announced another 4,000 cuts.

The Amsterdam-based company unveiled net losses of €105 million (RM484 million) for the fourth quarter of 2022 and €1.605 billion for last year as a whole, largely due to the recall.

Philips announced a global recall in 2021 of its appliances to treat people suffering from sleep apnoea and now faces a number of lawsuits in the United States.

This followed concerns patients risked “possible toxic and carcinogenic effects” if they inhaled or swallowed pieces of degraded sound-dampening foam on the machines.

Jakobs, who took over last October, said Philips needed to “improve performance and simplify our way of working to improve our agility and productivity”.

“This includes the difficult, but necessary further reduction of our workforce by around 6,000 roles globally by 2025,” he said.

A total of 3,000 of the new job cuts would be made this year.

Jakobs said Philips would also focus on “strengthening our patient safety and quality management and completing the Respironics recall”.

Starting off as a lighting company more than 130 years ago, Philips has undergone major changes in recent years, selling off assets to focus on making high-end electronic healthcare products. – AFP, January 30, 2023.