DSME Says 12,000 Job Cuts Coming

Photo credit: Lappino

South Korea’s Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering will cut 12,000 jobs from its workforce by 2019 as it tries to revive its business following a crash in oil prices and severe downturn in the offshore oil and gas sector.

“We are planning to reduce the number of employees to a similar level to 2009 and 2010 when management efficiency was the highest,” DSME CEO Jung Sung-leep said in a press conference at the firm’s headquarters in Seoul, the Korean Herald reports.

DSME’s current workforce is about 42,000. 

The shipbuilder said the job cuts will occur gradually over the next few years, versus a radical slash in headcount, the Herald reported.

Earlier this week DSME, the world’s second-biggest shipbuilder, posted a record loss totaling $4.3 billion in 2015 as it wrote down more charges from offshore projects under construction.

A crash in oil prices over the past 18 months has caused DSME customers particularly within the offshore oil and gas sector to cancel or postpone orders. 

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