Medical technology company Philips said on Monday it is cutting 4,000 jobs worldwide, including hundreds in the Netherlands, to help ‘restore performance’ after both orders and sales fell in the third quarter of the year.

The company has a global workforce of 79,000 and said forced redundancies will be unavoidable. The workforce in the Netherlands totals some 11,000, based in Eindhoven, Best and Drachten. The company’s headquarters are in Amsterdam.

The job losses, strengthening patient safety and improving supply chain operations ‘are needed to start turning the company around in order to realise Philips’ profitable growth potential and create value for all our stakeholders,’ new chief executive Roy Jakobs said.

According to the Financieele Dagblad, 800 jobs will go in the Netherlands, of which half will be compulsory redundancies.

Philips group sales were down 5% at €4.3 billion in the third quarter, orders were down 6% year and year and income from ordinary operations resulted in a loss of €1.5 billion.

Jakobs, who took over earlier this month, said the company had not lived up to expectations in recent years. ‘My immediate priority is therefore to improve execution so that we can start rebuilding the trust of patients, consumers and customers, as well as shareholders and our other stakeholders,’ he said.

Earlier this month Philips said it was taking a further €1.3 billion charge to offset the impact of problems with its sleep apnea equipment.

Legal trouble

Last month, a group of investors in Philips launched a claim for €16 billion for allegedly being misinformed about the extent of problems with the company’s devices to treat sleep apnea.

In addition, some 600 patients in the Netherlands are going to court to get the government to release confidential documents about the apparatus. The case centres on 1,000 documents detailing the results of research and correspondence between Philips and the health ministry about problems with the equipment, the NRC reported on Friday.

Philips has recalled 5.5 million machines and 17 million sleep masks worldwide after it emerged that tiny foam particles could be released during cleaning and then inhaled, while magnetic clips in the masks potentially interfere with heart pacemakers.