NEW YORK, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- U.S. chemicals giant Dow announced Thursday that it plans to cut around 4,500 jobs as part of a major restructuring effort to shift its emphasis toward artificial intelligence and automation.
The workforce reduction affects roughly 13 percent of the company's around 34,600 global employees, and is part of a new initiative dubbed "Transform to Outperform." Dow aims to generate 2 billion U.S. dollars in near-term earnings growth through the plan, with two-thirds of the benefits expected to come from productivity improvements.
"Transform to Outperform will drive significant simplification in how work gets done," Dow CEO Jim Fitterling said in a news release. He noted that the company will leverage "leading-edge technologies" to address "prolonged trough and structural industry challenges."
The company anticipates incurring total one-time costs of 1.1 billion to 1.5 billion dollars associated with the restructuring, including 600 million to 800 million dollars specifically for severance costs.
The announcement coincided with the release of Dow's fourth-quarter financial results for 2025, in which the company reported a GAAP net loss of 1.5 billion dollars, with net sales falling 9 percent year over year to 9.5 billion dollars due to declines in local prices and volumes.
For the full year of 2025, Dow posted a GAAP net loss of 2.4 billion dollars, a sharp reversal from the net income of 1.2 billion dollars recorded in 2024.
