Companies announce hundreds of job cuts

print this

There was more bad news on the corporate front on Wednesday. Metsä-Botnia is starting co-determination talks with personnel on temporary layoffs at four of the paper company’s plants.
      The negotiations will apply to 678 employees at installations in Joutseno, Kemi, Rauma, and Äänekoski.
     
The pulp mill at Kaskinen has been hanging in the balance for a while. The company’s CEO Ilkka Hämälä says that the Kaskinen plant will either be shut down completely, or that its approximately 200 employees will be put on temporary redundancy for at least three months.
      The closures of the other plants involved in the discussions are expected to be a few weeks in duration.
     
Ahlström also announced plans to temporarily lay off more than 300 employees at its factories in Karhula, Mikkeli, and Tampere. Permanent job cuts are also possible. The company also plans to cut staff at its facilities in other countries as well.
      The Ensto Group, which manufactures electrification systems, could lay off 700 employees.
      Smaller companies are also cutting back on production. Salocomp, which manufactures mobile telephone chargers, is holding talks on temporary layoffs, or a shorter working week with 50 employees.
      Moventas, which manufactures wind turbines and industrial gears, plans to trim 120 people from its factories in Karkkila and Jyväskylä.
     
The pharmaceutical company Orion reported on the results of its co-determination talks, which began in November. The company said that 175 people would be let go. In addition, about 30 others will leave through pension arrangements and other similar means. The cutbacks focus on the company’s pharmaceutical research and development activities. The job cuts will be greatest in the Espoo unit, where 105 will lose their jobs. Turku will lose 55 employees, and Kuopio will shed about 15 jobs.
      Also completing talks with its personnel is Nordkalk, a manufacturer of limestone products. The company is temporarily laying off its entire staff of 184 people for four weeks.
     
The Ministry of Employment and the Economy says that 46,000 people in 4,100 companies have been laid off temporarily. The number has increased by 10,000 from a month ago.
      The majority, 21,900, have been laid off for a fixed time, while one in ten, 4,600, are on an open-ended redundancy.
      If all of the temporary layoffs were made permanent, the unemployment rate would grow by nearly two percentage points. According to the most recent figures, from November, the unemployment rate was 6.0 per cent.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Labour Ministry predicts 13,000 new jobless next year (12.11.2008)
  Labour Minister Cronberg expects higher unemployment in new year (2.12.2008)

See also:
  Poll: Fighting unemployment seen as increasingly important goal (2.1.2009)

Helsingin Sanomat