SAP Israel Ltd. held hearings for 20 employees yesterday as part of the laying off of 3,000 employees worldwide by SAP AG (NYSE; SAP; XETRA: SAPG) by the end of the year. The hearings are mandated by Israeli labor law, but many high-tech companies prefer to evade this requirement and apply the cold American method of forcing employees to leave forthwith.
Most of the job losses are likely at SAP's R&D center in Ra'anana, which has 850 employees, as well as at SAP's marketing division, which has 150 employees.
Managers of SAP Israel had hoped that the layoffs announced by SAP's headquarters in Germany would bypass Israel, but market sources begged to differ. The layoffs at SAP Israel are proportionally lower than at other SAP units around the world, but the current layoffs are unlikely to be the last, given the global economic climate.
SAP Israel had undertaken a number of cost-cutting measures to avoid layoffs, including a near total halt in hiring and the shutting of a dining room.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on March 3, 2009
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