APM Terminals Gothenburg Taps Into New Labor Pool

Swedish APM Terminals Gothenburg has signed an agreement with the staffing agency Adecco to hire temporary personnel effective October 1, 2017 to address adhoc extra staffing needs at peak times.

The main work carried out at the container terminal will continue to be performed by the permanent staff, the terminal operator said, adding that the collaboration with Adecco enables APM Terminals to increase reliability and flexibility during those times when extra staffing are required to handle customer requests “in a faster, more responsive, customized manner.”

“In our business, we see weather conditions affecting ship schedules, last minute changes to supply chains or unplanned absences making it essential for us to be able to adjust the size of our workforce to keep pace with our customer requests. We believe this new option can translate into more customer success that will grow our business,” Henrik Kristensen, APM Terminals Gothenburg Managing Director, said.

Until this deal, APM Terminals Gothenburg has been involved in an arrangement known in Sweden as the Blixtsystem, in which additional personnel were shared with three other port facilities in Gothenburg. Just over 300 people are currently employed temporarily on an hourly basis in the Blixtsystem, which is shared by APM Terminals, Logent Ports & Terminals AB and Gothenburg Ro/Ro Terminal AB in the Port of Gothenburg.

APM Terminals’ involvement in the Blixtsystem will cease at the end of the year.

“We are looking forward to supplying skilled personnel through our partnership with APM Terminals Gothenburg. We have now started recruiting new personnel, and our aim is to work closely with the company to build up an effective staffing solution for them,” Niklas Evheden, Branch Manager at Adecco in Gothenburg, said.

The move comes on the back of a series of industrial actions which hit APM Terminals Gothenburg over a period of a year from mid-2016. Nine days were lost to strikes and 14 trade union blockades following one after the other were organized during the period, leading to a loss of several customers.

In June 2017, the operator served a notice of termination to 160 staff members, out of a total of 450 employees, citing “a sharp fall in volumes over the past year” as the reason.