SunPower to let go up to 160 employees due to change of focus

US solar company SunPower (NASDAQ:SPWR) adopted on Friday a restructuring plan as part of which it will slash 145 to 160 non-manufacturing jobs.

In November the company announced a plan to separate its international photovoltaic (PV) cell and panel manufacturing operations into a new Singapore-based company, called Maxeon Solar Technologies, while SunPower becomes a North America-focused distributed generation, storage and energy services company.

The reduction in headcount is necessary because of the spin-off of Maxeon and the new focus of the company. The 145 to 160 jobs that will be cut in the next 12 to 18 months represent about 3% of SunPower’s global workforce.

In the SunPower Technologies division and corporate, 65 to 70 employees will exit the company after the spin-off and completion of transition services. Between 80 and 90 more jobs will be axed at the SunPower Energy Services unit by mid-2020.

The company expects to report restructuring charges of between USD 16 million (EUR 14.3m) and USD 22 million related to the workforce optimisation, mainly in the fourth quarter of 2019 and the first quarter of the new year. About USD 14 million-19 million of these charges are expected to be cash.

(USD 1 = EUR 1.12)

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