BASF have announced a further 1,200 redundancies as the company announced a 79% drop in second quarter profits compared with the same period of 2000. The company had previously announced the loss of 2,800 jobs in the next 18 months.
BASF chairman Jürgen Strube said: ‘Under the current conditions of volatility, we have to accept that the good full year results we achieved in 2000 will not be reached this year.’ He added that only ‘extraordinary efforts’ and a significant change in economic conditions before the end of the year would allow the company to achieve previous targets of 10% annual income growth.
The chemicals arm recorded a slight increase in revenue over the same period, but the higher cost of raw materials resulted in a 40% drop in profits.
