LONDON: Royal Dutch Shell said Wednesday it’s planning to cut between 7,000 and 9,000 jobs worldwide by the end of 2022 following a collapse in demand for oil and a subsequent slide in oil prices during the coronavirus pandemic.
The oil company said around 1,500 employees have already agreed to take voluntary redundancy this year and that it’s looking at a raft of other areas where it can cut costs, such as travel, its use of contractors and virtual working. Overall, it said it expects the cost-cutting measures to secure annual cost savings of between $2 billion and $2.5 billion by 2022.
We have to be a simpler, more streamlined, more competitive organization that is more nimble and able to respond to customers,” Ben van Beurden, the company’s chief executive, said. To be more nimble, we have to remove a certain amount of organizational complexity.
In June, rival BP said it…