Rieter cutting up to 900 jobs

In July, Rieter launched a program of measures to strengthen its sales competencies and proximity to customers, in addition to cutting costs. As part of this, the company planned to cut 300 jobs in administrative roles at its sites in Ingolstadt and Winterthur. “Due to the current market situation”, however, the company is set to cut an additional 400-600 jobs in production, as the manufacturer of machines used in the textiles industry writes in a corresponding press release.

The consultation processes for the administrative roles being cut were already completed in the last quarter. The majority of these job cuts are likely to have been implemented by the end of the year. The final number of additional jobs to be cut in production depends on the level of incoming orders over the next few months, Rieter explains in the press release.

In the first nine months of 2023, Rieter recorded an order intake totaling 452.2 million Swiss francs overall. In the same period of the previous year, the equivalent value was just under 1.10 billion Swiss francs. In the third quarter, incoming orders amounted to 127.2 million Swiss francs, corresponding to a -44 percent decline versus the prior-year period.

The current order backlog totaling approximately 900 million Swiss francs will allow “good capacity utilization at the production facilities into the coming year”, Rieter writes in the press release. The company expects the market to recover again over the course of the next financial year. For the current year, Rieter has issued guidance that sales will be on a par with the previous year and anticipates an operating income margin of between 5 and 7 percent. ce/hs