South Korea’s shipbuilder Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI) is looking to further cut its workforce, continuing with the move earlier announced in the company’s self-rescue plan , according to Yonhap News Agency.
Although the exact number of workforce which would be reduced this year was not unveiled, the shipbuilder is expected to slash a total of 5,000 jobs by 2018, of which it already cut 1,500 during 2016 through an early retirement scheme.
SHI is moving ahead with its workforce reduction on the back of a depression in the shipbuilding industry. The company is also looking to have its employees return part of their salaries in an effort to cut costs.
So far this year, the shipbuilder clinched USD 4.8 billion worth of orders to construct 13 vessels, including two offshore plants. SHI expects to end the year with some USD 6.2 billion worth of orders, slightly less than its 2017 goal of USD 6.5 billion.
At the start of the year, the shipbuilder said that it managed to reduce its operating loss by around 90 percent. Namely, SHI ended 2016 with an operating loss of KRW 147.2 million, against an operating loss of KRW 1.5 billion recorded a year earlier.
Due to forecasts that the shipbuilding industry could slightly improve during 2017, the shipbuilder decided to raise its orderbook goal, from last year’s USD 5.3 billion target, after winning a major order to build a large offshore platform at the beginning of the year.
World Maritime News Staff