Power plant builder Wärtsilä is to axe around 1000 jobs around the world after weaker than expected profits.
The company, which dropped plans for a £5.5billion takeover of Rolls Royce earlier this month, said the move was part of a £50million a year cost-savings programme.
Profits were up at the engineering firm seven percent year on year, to £166million ($275million). Order levels and sales fell around 1% for the year, as delays from customers in approving power generation purchases continued.
The firm, which makes power generation equipment and ship engines, also provides services and support for the oil, gas and renewable energy sectors.
Wärtsilä employs more than 650 people in the UK, with offices in Aberdeen and Montrose – and yesterday announced it had won a contract to provide the power module for the Kraken floating production unit.
The company could not confirm how many jobs in its UK operations would be hit, but confirmed it would be opening talks with staff in all the countries where it has a permanent presence.
“In an environment of slow growth and intense competition, we must take steps to adjust our cost structure accordingly,” said chief executive says Björn Rosengren.
“Only by increasing the efficiency and flexibility of our organisation globally can we secure profitability and maintain competitiveness going forward. Unfortunately redundancies cannot be avoided.”
The company, which employs more than 18,000 people around the world, said around 200 of the 1000 jobs will be at its main operations in Finland, with the rest from its overseas operations.
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