BASF has introduced shorter working hours for staff at some German and Italian sites, warning job cuts might follow after demand for products “declined significantly” in December and failed to recover this month.

The move is an extension of working-hours reductions that were introduced in November when the German chemicals group asked one-fifth of its global workforce of 95,000 to take holidays and work off their time owed, cutting output by 25 per cent until mid-January.