GE plans to cut 6500 jobs in Europe after Alstom purchase

General Electric Company (NYSE:GE) is looking to expand its presence in the business of servicing and maintaining gas turbines.

The move has raised questions about GE’s pledges to create rather than destroy jobs. The layoffs represent about 14 percent of the 48,000 people that GE’s Power and Water division employs in Europe after the Alstom acquisition.

GE sealed its €8.5-billion ($9.2 billion) acquisition of Alstom’s energy businesses in November.

The French government had been concerned that the 17 billion United States dollar Alstom takeover deal in 2014 would cause job cuts.

An estimated 765 jobs will be eliminated in France, most at Alstom’s headquarters outside Paris and at an electric grid business, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday, citing comments from a Europe-based GE spokesman.

French government spokesman Stephane Le Foll said Paris would monitor the company’s implementation of its commitments. In a bid to protect French jobs, there were concerns the government could try to nationalise Renault and return production home, putting up to 7,000 United Kingdom jobs at risk.

The jobs cuts relate to synergies being realised associated with the acquisition of Alstom.

Union representatives lashed out at the plan, saying that having now taken over Alstom, the only thing GE was doing was announcing job cuts.

The GE spokesman further stated that jobs would be also cut in non-European countries as part of the company’s restructuring plan, which was prompted by the disarray in the energy industry as a result of the plunging oil and gas prices on worldwide markets. “These positions, if we cancel them, will have to be recreated in addition to the 1,000 we promised to create”.

In Europe as a whole, staff in Alstom’s renewables, power services and energy management divisions could be affected.