Thread regarding SAP layoffs

@gv and you use axe in a vain attempt to mask the stench of fascism excreted from your pores!

So there will be layoffs in Europe?

Interesting. That means open positions, right?

I would like to get a job at SAP in waldorf. I am an Indian. I work very hard, always do the needful and always, always praise the bossman.

Hiring me would be a big win for SAP HR.

@ge you smell like Orwell.

ADMIN! You need to get these people with completely reprehensible opinions out now! The racism, xenophobia are lowering the tone and are reflecting poorly upon the reputation of this site.

@fr you're naive to think that Elon Musk is lobbying for the good of Europeans... He is lobbying for his own benefit as current EU is preventing him from extending his domination on Social media, EV, Space... etc.

EU is not US: the current labor laws are protecting the fragiles in EU and maintain some stability of the society.
The American Society is not all good, it's more egoistic and benefits only the rich and powerful

@fm yes. We need to reduce worker protections in Europe and make layoffs easier. It will actually make work more challenging and the freeloaders will have to leave. Elon Musk was right to lobby for the AfD and try to save Europe by disbanding the EU but he has not succeeded yet. I am sure that he will get this done via Alex Carp who also happens to be good friends with CK and DA. After all, SAP is very small part of the future business and almost all future revenue will be unlocked using the mass surveillance programs with Palantir that SAP is enabling on European businesses and governments.

@fh Interesting that so many EU colleagues don't like the current environment, since it has become more German-centric than ever in the past decade.

And the EU has become so stagnant that it took the Canadian PM to actually mobilize them to start generating some activity. The fact that there is slow economic activity in Europe is entirely due to the huge cradle to grave social programs that all the folks there buy into.

You reap what you sow...

@eg It's not surprising as US is at the heart of AI strategy so for once US should be safe.

This time it's more likely Europe who will pay the price as there are still product teams maintaining OnPrem so if anyone should leave it will be our European colleagues.

Hopefully severance will be good as I know a lot of european colleagues are tired of the current atmosphere in the company and are just waiting for a good opportunity to leave.

SAP will be working hard stopping people from leaving which will be deadly for some OnPrem products as they're the last experts still in-house on these products.

@eg It does exist but it is more of a box-move exercise to sort out the former area of MA.

I spoke to a colleague in HR and she said there is nothing called Projrct Fuji. So this is fake news or its not relevant to the US.

Yeah do you know that it is now becoming more expensive to use AI due to the expensive data centres that are needed than it is to keep employees?

Who else is developing AI fatigue?

Truth be told, it is sad to see so many managers drunk on the AI Kool Aid. They believe AI improves productivity by 50% and that you could lay off half of the engineers and the work won't be affected. One of the managers in my area actually proposed that we do a "split test" between two teams who work on similar topics but only one uses AI extensively. She shut down her attempts after realizing that this team spent more money on AI tokens than the salaries of most developers on the other team. Can you imagine this? The average cost of tokens for a developer who is really using AI is around €4500 a month! And yet they want to push AI as the most sustainable employment model simply because it reduces empathy towards humans.

@cx You want everyone to stop focusing on bad policies by HR and executives designed to hurt us so we can get a chance to be racist towards Indians? In 2026, unfortunately, that is a tough choice.

Everyone, please keep the focus on the layoffs which are due to bad decisions by area executives.

@b3 they will move to product team and survive.

Pls don’t spread rumors . There is no layoff in sap .

Those who survive the purge must hope that SAP will hire lots of Indians afterwards to save the company.

Interesting observations from today's d-com Q&A:

• CK said that AI was the CODE RED for SAP and that's why they had to leave all the semester plans behind and jump head first in All In On AI. It is an ongoing exercise since the last 6 months now and is draining the mental health of SAP employees. (That he didn't said but the employees who were a part of it said openly on office floors including myself).
• Finally he admitted that JOULE didn't meet the expectations which they happily said met in their previous 2-3 All Hands.
• Phillip Herzig was geeking as always and BSing about AI players as commodities and his AI token usage.
• Manoj S, also accepted that their Project Nova LLM models haven't even started, which earlier they said was under training on SAP Customer Data, which CK said customers have agreed in the contracts.

They all were good in twisting the stories and doing mental gymnastics. What they said, L1,L2,L3, PMs and Architects blindly pass down to the teams.

The works council should focus on Germany part , so 8000 isn’t a global shared number?

@b3 Never. They cannot be replaced with AI and they are the most important function in the company after the executives.

Please - can HR be in the layoff pool for once?

All I can say is - if you want to remain at SAP - flatter your boss until it makes you physically ill, and then flatter him/her even more. It does not matter what people say - your boss has the power to make your redundant. I was honest and transparent on the survey about the complete incompetence of my boss, whereas my direct reports gave me great reviews on the surveys and the 365 review - that was the death knell for me. I guess I should be grateful as I received an amazing redundancy package and had a new job in a matter of weeks.

@aw CK also said that SAP will invest in 15000 new jobs in India. But that was a lie too. He says whatever he has to to get his millions in bonuses. He cannot be trusted. Layoffs are coming for sure and the board doesn't want to give out VERPs this time.

@aw

Yes, they are for the most part "very strategic and successful" in B.S.ing their way into American businesses, hiring only their own, and in rarely taking responsibility for how they decimate and ruin from within, practically every business process that they touch.

Why, they've almost made an ART out of it!
Soooo strategic and successful in downgrading and suffocating genuine innovation and quality.

So PROUD of themselves about it, too!
Yes sir-eee, they sure get a lot of satisfaction out of being parasitic and destructive.
To them, it's "progress."

@aw thank you!

A couple of thoughts here. 1) possibly the other 6k of layoffs will come from US/Canada, etc where (I assume) the works council has no jurisdiction. Not sure how that all works since I am in the Americas. 2) Maybe the announcement comes sooner but the layoffs don't begin until 2027 since CK said definitively that there would be no layoffs in H2 -- does he want to risk being called a liar? 3) personally I would love a VERP since I would likely be eligible but I can't imagine any packages being as sweet as last time. However, maybe that was one negotiating tactic to get the works council to agree?

Also, really, really don't like all the negative and racist "Indian" references here. My colleagues who are Indian are kind, professional, incredibly smart, and hard-working. And those who lead tech companies are typically very strategic and successful. Please stop with the negativity.

In today's d-com's executive Q&A - CK mentioned it twice and one of his peers once that other companies are laying off due to AI but we aren't and want to keep the people. Check the recording.
Conflicting statements from here and the board...Maybe they will start the layoff next year?

@aj oh no, that's absolutely sick. It give manager so much power to manipulate the people they don't likes for ridiculous reason.

@aa they do not want to offer VERP because they know that they can save on the severance money by giving bad performance reviews and laying off employees due to "poor performance" and because they are not a part of "SAP's AI strategy". Managers have full power to decide who stays and who goes so best time to be nice to your manager now.

@ae I am not the OP but from what I heard, they made a deal to lay off 8000 in 2026 and 2027. But they want to lay off 14000 so they will keep pushing to lay of more people even after this deal. So expect to get dismal performance reviews and for HR and managers to make the culture so bad that you would want to leave yourself. All this so they can save the severance money and use it for share buybacks.

Game Plan:

Insist that all humans doubt the veracity, creativity, and capability of their own brains, by requiring they to utilize unproven, rogue, robotic, anti-human thought-think.

Yeah.
This is SURE to go well, for all of humanity, worldwide.

8000 or 14000? AI is a cover to layoff senior/expensive employee, or they really care?

Thomas S made it clear in his CVG all hands, no VERP project in on the table right now. The right thing to do is offer one. I’m sure it would be well received.

I'm not surprised at all, we saw this coming even when we pretended it won't happen because they didn’t explicitly mention it in All-hands. When have zero-competent managers in the field, who are there just because they know someone, and those “telling” what gets done and who do the job or deserves to let go, that tells much about where SAP is heading. SAP is done.

This is all very sad.

One bright spot is that SAP can then hire more Indians.