BASF, the world’s largest chemical company, has announced a further cost-cutting programme.
Chief executive Markus Kamieth outlined an additional cost-cutting programme on Wednesday aimed at reducing costs in the core business by up to 20% by 2029.
The new programme will lead to further job cuts within the group, Kamieth confirmed in an interview with the German financial daily Handelsblatt published on Wednesday.
He spoke of “one of the largest optimization programmes for BASF, a new operating system for the group.”
“It will lead to a new core business with fewer staff,” Kamieth added. Staff costs are expected to account for a large proportion of the targeted savings.
But he said this is not a reaction to a potentially further deteriorating economy. “The project was anchored in our strategy presented in 2024 from the outset; now we are implementing it,” the BASF chief executive asserted.
BASF is struggling with underutilization, particularly at its main plant in the German city of Ludwigshafen. The DAX-listed group has therefore launched several cost-cutting programmes worth billions of euros, including extensive job cuts. According to the executive board, around 2,800 jobs have been lost at BASF SE in Ludwigshafen since the start of 2024.
BASF will refrain from making redundancies for operational reasons in Ludwigshafen until the end of 2028 and will invest billions of euros in the main plant there. The group and employee representatives agreed on this in a new site agreement at the end of 2025.
In the first quarter of this year, the chemical group had 106,428 employees worldwide, around 5,000 fewer than in the first quarter of the previous year. With around 33,000 people, the main plant employs roughly a third of the group’s global workforce.
