Metso Corporation to lay off 400 workers in Sweden and Finland

Pori unit has not received new orders in several months

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The engineering company Metso Corporation is to cut 400 jobs in its facilities in Sweden and Finland. Both shop-floor workers and managerial employees will be laid off.
      The company has announced that the aim of the move is to reduce the firm’s annual costs by more than EUR 20 million. These streamlining measures are not expected to come to fruition in their entirety until 2011.
     
The restructuring operation will cost Metso EUR 15 million, which will be entered into the books as an expense already during Q4 of this year.
      The reductions will take place in Metso’s Fiber Business Line (FBL) operations.
      According to Metso, “the line supplies chemical and mechanical pulp industry customers with machinery and equipment, as well as aftermarket and expert services”.
     
The greatest number of jobs will be cut in Sweden, where 288 employees will be laid off from Metso’s Sundsvall, Karlstad, and Hagfors units.
      In Finland, the axe will fall most heavily at the Pori unit, which will see its workforce reduced to the tune of 95 employees.
      In Pori there are 230 workers, of which 160 are managerial staff. According to their elected official Asko Palin, the Pori unit has not received any new orders in several months.
      “For this type of large company a negative result is a ‘no-no’. They used to say that personnel are a company’s largest asset. Now they are the biggest expense”, Palin continues.
      In Palin’s view there is nothing that can be done. “The orders come from elsewhere. If the local director does not comply with them, even his position may become wobbly.”
      According to the local director, Fiber Business Line Senior Vice President Hannu Tähkänen, in Pori staff have been laid off throughout the year.
      “We have not received one decent order this year. The market situation collapsed in October of last year.”
      “The only consoling news in this situation is that no-one else has received new orders, either.”
      On Monday, Metso Corporation President and CEO Jorma Eloranta told news agency Bloomberg that the customers are once more ready to negotiate over large projects.
      In Eloranta’s view the recovery may start next year.
      “But it will take some time before the upswing starts gaining momentum”, Eloranta said.


Links:
  Forexyard: comments by Metso CEO Jorma Eloranta
  Metso Corporation
  Metso Press Release

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