Kurt-Ludwig Gutberlet, the chairman of CECED (Conseil Europ©en de la Construction d’appareils Domestiques) has stated that “We see a number of job cuts in the months to come, although in the case of our company, we’ve been able to adapt via a flexible workforce,” Mr Gutberlet is also chairman of Bosch & Siemens Domestic Appliances.
Mr Gutberlet was speaking in response to the mammoth losses announced by Electrolux yesterday and the figure of a 10% reduction in demand for new appliances in the last quarter of 2008.
“In Q4 of 2008, we have seen demand slip by approximately 10 percent,” he told Reuters late on Wednesday, adding that the business environment had not improved since. He linked the industry’s problems to the overall economic slowdown in Europe, but particularly to the construction sector.
“If no new homes are being built, we don’t sell many new kitchen appliances,” said Gutberlet, who was visiting Brussels to complain to the European Commission about draft proposals to change the way energy efficiency is graded.
European domestic appliances have improved energy efficiency so much in recent years that they are now largely at the top of the EU’s A-G efficiency scale, and plans to regrade the system might give the impression some products have been demoted.
“This is a very dangerous signal to the consumer,” he added of the plans, which will be fine-tuned in the coming weeks. “We see a risk of 400- 500 million euros ($513-641 million) to refrigerators alone if re-scaling happens as proposed now.”
A CECED spokeswoman said the total annual impact to the industry’s bottom line could be three times that amount.