Crisis, Employment, Estonia, Transport

Initially, only two members of the Management Board of the enterprise and mothers on parental leave will remain on the company’s staff lists.

The Loksa Shipyard’s Personnel Director Marju Varter said that while the redundancy notes were distributed now, actually people will be made redundant gradually from the end of February, March or April.

“The reason for the redundancies is that starting the second quarter, we don’t have as many orders to give work to people,” said Varter. “But we are working in the name of getting new orders and re-employing people. Since it is a big plant, the question emerged whether there is any point in keeping the company going.”

She said that till the end of April there are some orders that were left from the old owner. At the beginning of November last year, the Loksa Shipyard was bought from its former owner Odense Steel Shipyard by Loksa Invest, that belongs to local companies of Loksa.

“We all very much hope that the management can do something and find orders,” said Varter.

So far, the plant produced ship constructions for big container ships. In recent times, these orders have moved mainly to China and Hong Kong.

Varter said that redundancy is a social catastrophe for the small town of Loksa as 360 of the 525 employees are locals and this means that more than a tenth of the town’s inhabitants would lose jobs.