Israel-headquartered solar inverter supplier SolarEdge has announced that it will lay off about 900 employees to reduce operating expenses.
The company said the workforce reduction will impact about 16% of its global workforce. Of the employees who are going to be laid off, 500 are from the company’s several manufacturing sites.
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The layoff will be another measure to adjust its cost structure against the backdrop of “current market conditions”, as SolarEdge has discontinued manufacturing in Mexico, reduced manufacturing capacity in China, and terminated its light commercial vehicle e-mobility activity.
Zvi Lando, CEO of SolarEdge, said the company remained confident in the long-term growth of the solar energy market and its leading position in the smart energy space.
“These changes do not impact our strategic direction and priorities and we remain committed to continue to drive the renewable energy transformation,” he said.
SolarEdge will release further details of the layoff during the end-of-year earnings release in late February.
In November 2023, SolarEdge posted a downturn financial results for the third quarter of 2023, which it attributed to a “slow market environment, in particular in Europe”. The results were forecast in the company’s preliminary Q3 results, where it predicted Q3 revenue to be 20% lower than the original consensus, in the range of US$720-730 million. Announced Q3 revenues were down 27% sequentially to US$725.3 million, and 13% down year-on-year.
Operating loss, due to substantial unexpected cancellations and pushouts of existing backlog from European distributors during the second part of Q3 2023, was $16.7 million. This was in line with preliminary estimates within the range of US$9-28 million.
Lando said market demand began to slow in Q3 2023 and distributors began to experience financial challenges. As a result, SolarEdge received a large amount of requests to cancel or push out orders.