Solstad Offshore, based in the picturesque town of Skudeneshavn on Norway’s west coast, doesn’t see any prospects for improvement in the oil industry and has thus decided to lay up 10 more of its vessels. The move means that 300 employees will lose their jobs, with the cuts coming along with more job losses in the media business, too.
“The market is difficult now,” Solstad’s assistant managing director Sven Stakkestad told newspaper Dagens Næringsliv (DN) on Tuesday. “We don’t see any changes over the next year, and the bad times may last even longer.” The company thus had to cut costs and lay up several of its anchor-handling and oil platform supply ships.
Three other vessels in Solstad’s fleet of 46 are already idle. Newspaper Haugesunds Avis reported that of the 300 people losing their jobs, 150 are Scandinavians, mostly Norwegians, around 75 are Brazilians and the rest are Filipino seafarers. The cuts will affect officers as well as crews on board the vessels.
Meanwhile, media company Modern Times Group (MTG), which owns radio station P4 and TV stations Viasat and TV3, also announced that it would lay off 30-50 employees in Norway. The stocklisted MTG announced that its new cost-cutting plan should save it around NOK 600 million and liberate capital to invest in digital operations.
newsinenglish.no staff
