Zurich, Switzerland's biggest insurance company, will cut even more jobs in Germany than previously announced as it bids to make the business more profitable.
Marcus Nagel, the new country CEO for Germany at Zurich, is doing what new brooms often do: act decisively to turn an ailing business around. He will axe as many as 825 jobs by the end of 2018 in Germany, according to a statement released in connection with the publication of the annual report 2015.
The cuts will be bigger than expected. Previously, the company had considered removing about 500 of the unit's 5,200 full-time positions by the end of 2017.
Declining Profitability
Zurich is having a tough time not just in Germany: Mario Greco, the new chief executive will have to axe as many as 8,000 of the company's 55,000 jobs worldwide within three years.
Nagel is blaming the costs at the general insurance business for the need to save more money than previously announced. The German unit reported a pretax profit of 208 million euros last year, down 71 million from a year earlier.
