About two years ago, Bill Anderson took the helm as chief executive of Bayer and outlined major restructuring efforts to bolster its profits. Now, the company has revealed that about 12,000 full-time employees have been let go as part of Anderson’s cost-cutting programme — with more in the works.
The figure was disclosed in Bayer’s second-quarter financial report on Wednesday.
When Anderson assumed the role of CEO in mid-2023, he set a goal to deliver €2 billion ($2.3 billion) in annual savings by 2026, and in particular targeted managerial positions under his sweeping workforce reduction efforts.
Indeed, some of the first cuts Anderson made were in his C-suite, reducing Bayer’s leadership team of 14 down to eight in the first quarter of 2024. The layoffs began in earnest that period, when about 1500 staffers were let go; 3200 employees in total were fired during the first half of 2024.
According to Bayer, it had close to 100,000 staffers at the end of 2023, and now has a headcount of about 89,556.
When asked during an investor call Wednesday how many jobs Bayer is planning to cut, Anderson declined to provide an exact figure, but confirmed more layoffs were on the way.
“We’re not projecting, you know, how many job losses there will be,” Anderson said on the call. “But I would expect that there will be additional reductions in headcount number certainly over the coming 18 months or so.”
It’s too soon to tell whether the layoffs are having a major impact on Bayer’s business, but the drugmaker reported a year-over-year sales uptick for its pharmaceuticals division Wednesday.
The company’s prescription medicines portfolio brought in €4.47 billion in revenues, up 0.6% from the year-ago period, which prompted Bayer to raise its guidance. It now expects currency- and portfolio-adjusted sales growth of 0 to 3%, up from its earlier projects of -4% to -1%.
Driving this growth were prostate cancer drug Nubeqa, which had €546 million in sales, up 50.5% year-over-year, and chronic kidney disease treatment Kerendia, which saw its revenues jump 67.1% compared with the second quarter of 2024 to €183 million.
“Thanks to our year-to-date performance in Pharmaceuticals, we’re raising our 2025 currency-adjusted guidance for the Group on both sales and earnings,” Bayer said.
On a currency-adjusted basis, Bayer is now predicting Group sales of €46 billion to €48 billion, compared with its previous target range of €45 billion to €47 billion.