[kaon_2]

This. Phillips and ASML share the same regional and cultural heritage. Many ASML employees will have first-hand experience of Phillips' downfall. They certainly do not want to repeat that mistake.

[Wurdan]

As an engineering manager (and one who's slowly starting a job hunt) these comments don't make for comfortable reading. What we'll never know from a press release like this is whether this is a change that employees wanted, or one which senior leadership wanted. Sure there are companies where management is overly bloated or inefficient. And maybe I'm just flattering myself by thinking that my teams' lives wouldn't be any easier if I got axed. But I'd like to think that "good middle management" is not a self-contradictory notion.

[speleding]

When I worked as a strategy consultant in the Netherlands (albeit decades ago), the rule of thumb was that any organization that had not seen a reorganization for five years would accumulate at least 10% of dead weight. (Mainly due to very strict labour laws that make it very costly to fire someone.)

ASML has 44,000 staff total, not sure how many are managers, but the 1,700 number does not strike me as particularly ambitious for a reorg in a company that size.

[zwaps]

They indicate that this is something engineers want. Further, half of the 3000 with transition back to engineering, indicating that they think they will be more valuable as engineers.

Middle management has this self-replicating dynamic of becoming bloated and inefficient. Most companies probably do not have good middle management, because they have too much of it.

[Scarblac]

Apparantly ASML had 4500 managers of 16000 employees in the engineering department, and engineers spent a third of their time in meetings.

1500 managers of 14400 employees sounds a lot more normal to me.