The global financial services banking group
ING (ranked as one of the world's top 20 banks by market capitalisation) and one of the world's biggest electronics companies Philips have announced plans to cut 13,000 jobs worldwide after US president Barack Obama spoke of what could be an “unprecedented” global crisis cut ever deeper.
Both Dutch firms made the announcements before the steelmaker Corus reported plans to cut more than 3,500 jobs worldwide, 2,500 of which will come from the UK, following a substantial fall in demand.
Philips has said it is to cut 6,000 jobs due to the global slowdown which has had a big effect on sales, with sales down 1.5% at 26.39 billion euros in 2008 seeing a net loss of 186 million euros after a fourth quarter loss of 1.47 billion euros.
Chief executive Gerard Kleisterlee released a statement saying: "The fourth quarter results reflect the serious consequences of the global financial and economic crisis and the measures taken by management accordingly,"
ING chief executive, Michel Tilmant, announced his resignation following the news of 7,000 jobs being cut from ING.
"ING announced today that in light of the extraordinary developments over the past few months and given his personal condition, Michel Tilmant will step down from the Executive Board," the statement said.
Michel Tilmant will be replaced by the current chairman of the supervisory board, Jan Hommen.
In October last year the Dutch government ploughed 10 billion euros into the bank in an attempt to retain its stability suring the economic crisis.
ING currently has 85 million clients and 130,000 employees across the globe.
