Siemens Subsea cutting jobs in UK and Norway

Siemens Subsea is set to lay off more than 150 people in the UK and Norway combined, citing a lack of new orders due to low oil prices.

The company on Thursday said 95 positions in Norway and 60 employees in the UK would be affected.

In its statement, Siemens Subsea said that the drop in oil prices in the past two years has led to a dramatic fall in projects requiring the company’s solutions.

From an overall market in the world in about 550 projects in 2014, we now have dropped to an overall market of under 30 projects in 2016. This trend has been worse than we had feared at the start of 2016, Siemens Subsea said.

The company then turned to the layoffs, saying that due to the factors above, Siemens Subsea now expects that the market will have a flat trend over the next two years „and we are over-staffed,“ and need to „adjust the organization.“

“We are unfortunately unable to avoid the use of layoffs and dismissals. Of course, this is not a desirable situation, but we have no other choice when it comes to the need reorganization and adaptation to the market,“ the company said.

Out of all the Norwegian locations, Kongsberg is hit the hardest as Siemens Subsea will cease its manufacturing, assembly and testing activities there. Of the 55 employees in Kongsberg, 50 will have to go; 15 will be laid off in Trondheim, and there will be layoffs in Bomlo, Bergen, and Stavanger as well.

In an email sent to Offshore Energy Today, a Siemens Subsea executive explained that the adjustments in Norway are primarily done using temporary layoffs.

“This arrangement is not available in the UK and therefore we have to use layoffs there. In total equal to 114 FTE (full-time employees) will be laid off while 45 FTE will be on temporary leave,” the Siemens Subsea executive said.

Offshore Energy TOday Staff