Brazil's largest oil company Petrobras to slash 12,000 jobs

Brazilian oil company Petrobras, the country's largest company, will seek to eliminate 12,000 employees through voluntary resignations, in a move which should save it around 33 billion reais (9.25 billion U.S. dollars) by 2020, the company announced Friday.

Petrobras announced the plan in a press release, stating it had been approved by the board and would be part of the company's management plan going forward.

The company is currently going through a massive restructuring to deal with crippling debt, low oil prices, and a sprawling corruption investigation that has seen a number of its executives arrested.

"The company has around 12,000 employees that can retire. We are considering a plan of around this scale, at a predicted cost of 4.4 billion reais (1.23 billion U.S. dollars)," said Petrobras.

The company currently has 57,046 workers, having already removed 6,254 workers through voluntary resignations in 2014.

Petrobras also announced earlier this week that it would reduce by 43 percent the current 5,300 executives and managers the company has, most of whom enjoy high salaries and bonuses.

In 2015, the company suffered record consolidated net losses of 36.9 million reais (10.4 billion U.S. dollars). That year, it also began a massive divestment plan worth 98.4 billion U.S. dollars to pay down its debt, generate more cash liquidity and face the crisis sparked by low oil prices. Endite