UPDATE 1-Siemens, unions agree on job cut plans

(Adds union statement, detail)

FRANKFURT, July 22 (Reuters) - Siemens (SIEGn.DE) management and labour representatives have agreed on a framework to implement job cut plans in Germany, union officials said on Tuesday.

The cuts would be made without forced lay-offs and Siemens promised to refrain from closing or outsourcing production sites until September 2010, engineering trade union IG Metall and the Siemens works council said in a joint statement.

The engineering group announced earlier this month it plans to slash almost 17,000 jobs worldwide to speed up cost savings and boost margins. Of the total, 5,250 jobs will go in Germany.

Details will be finalised by August, allowing Siemens to book the costs for the programme in the current fiscal year, thus lowering its tax rate as it will also book a billion euro gain from the sale of its VDO unit.

A Siemens spokesman declined to comment on the accord.

At the time, Siemens also said it planned to dispose of its industrial services unit SIMS but union officials said the unit would now remain with Siemens and be restructured.

Siemens has said it wants to cut selling, general and administrative costs by about 10 percent within two years, partly by shrinking the number of separate legal entities that make up the conglomerate, which employs about 400,000 people.

The job cuts come as Siemens struggles to put an end to a worldwide investigation into a corruption and bribery scandal and as it hopes to regain investor confidence after a profit warning in March that sent its shares tumbling. (Reporting by Jens Hack; Editing by Paul Bolding)