Oil firm Wood Group to cut 300 onshore jobs

The Wood Group are cutting 300 jobs Picture: Andrew Milligan/PA Wire

The Aberdeen-based firm is opening a period of consultation with 1,000 onshore staff due to “cost and efficiency challenges” in the industry.

Wood Group said it expects about 300 redundancies in order to “remain competitive both now and in the future”.

David Kemp, Wood Group’s chief financial officer, said: “We are firmly committed to supporting the long-term sustainability of the industry in the North Sea and maximising economic recovery by ensuring we are fit for purpose, flexible and strongly-equipped to deliver efficiently and effectively. To achieve this, we are streamlining our structure and our processes to reduce costs, and an inevitable outcome of this is an impact on our employee numbers.

“As ever, our commitment is to act compassionately and sensitively.”

Wood Group employs about 6,200 people onshore in the UK. In February, the company revealed it cut 8,000 jobs last year as it battled to slash costs amid the global slump in commodity prices.

The 20 per cent workforce decline included 2,000 jobs in the UK as well as losses in the US and the Middle East as it made savings of more than £100 million.

Last week, the company announced it had won a £342.5 million contract to provide services to BP in Azerbaijan.

Last month the Unite union warned that offshore workers employed by Wood Group on Shell’s North Sea platforms could take industrial action if there are further pay cuts. Unite has demanded that planned changes to terms and conditions be withdrawn.

Wood Group said it was “working closely” with employees “impacted by these proposed measures”.

In February Wood Group PSN announced it was cutting rates paid to about a third of its UK contractor workforce.

It blamed the move on the “continuing cost and efficiency challenges affecting the UK North Sea oil and gas sector”.

Undecided who you’ll be voting for on Thursday? Try out this tool from ScotVote16