Another day, another slew of redundancies hits Norway’s hard pressed offshore sector with drilling firm MHWirth set to chop between 500 to 800 of its employees from its payroll. This follows on from 300 people axed from the same company earlier this year.
MHWirth is owned by investment company Akastor which the Kjell Inge Røkke-led industry conglomerate Aker has a stake of nearly 35%.
The company needs major new contracts to avoid downsizing and meetings have been held with union representatives, according to Norway’s financial newspaper Dagens Næringsliv.
The company has some 1,500 employees, the majority of these belong to its Kristiansand office.
The low price for oil has hammered Norway’s offshore sector, with some estimates predicting a total of 40,000 people will have been made redundant from the sector by year-end.