Paypal cuts jobs in Berlin

Author: Mario Schmidtgen
Date: 26.06.2019

309 of 355 jobs will be eliminated

The union Verdi announced on Monday that the Berlin branch of the online payment service PayPal, located in Berlin-Wilmersdorf, will cut about 309 of a total of 355. The message was sent to the works council of PayPal Europe SE a week ago. So far no statement has been made.

PayPal is not the only company in the capital region that is struggling with mass redundancies. At the beginning of the year, the company “Unser Heimatbäcker” had to struggle with an insolvency filing. 4390 of a total of 2700 jobs in northern and eastern Germany shall be cut, as it was said at the beginning of June.

At Siemens, employees also fear for their jobs. Since the company wants to outsource the energy division, 470 jobs in Berlin will be cut. The tobacco company Philip Morris International (PMI) plans to cut 950 of its current 1050 jobs by the end of the year.

Verdi is very surprised by the job cuts because of PayPal’s “excellent company results”. In addition, “restructuring measures” have been taken at the subsidiary Paypal Deutschland GmbH in recent weeks. Since the spin-off of PayPal from eBay in 2015, there has been no works council at the Brandenburg site.

Anselm Mathes, chairman of the advisory board of PayPal in Berlin, comments: “The Paypal works council, supported by the union Verdi, is already in negotiations with the employer. The clear goal is to preserve local jobs. The next few days and weeks will show to what extent this possibility exists”.