Danish shipping giant AP-Moller Maersk is lining up redundancies as it admitted up to 27,000 staff could be affected by a reorganisation.
The company announced a restructuring of businesses earlier this month, which will see the Safmarine and Damco brands integrated into the wider group.
Reuters cited an internal email to employees from Vincent Clerc, ocean and logistics chief executive, that read: "Simplifying the organisation will regrettably impact jobs due to duplicate roles and roles that will no longer be needed."
Clerc also told the Borsen daily: "Some will experience big changes, others small. Some are moving to new jobs, and a smaller number will unfortunately become redundant, which we take very seriously."
The company told TradeWinds that some employees will move to a new team or business area, "so it is the sum of people that will be affected somehow, whether small or larger impact".
Maersk added that it is working with employee representative bodies.
"First and foremost we aim to ensure that our employees are informed first," a spokesman said.
There has been no new statement from the company and it has not been more specific on job losses, but said between 26,000 and 27,000 people will be affected by the restructuring.
The group employs a total of 80,000 staff in containership, logistics, terminals and offshore shipping operations.
The news comes at a time when the company is prospering despite Covid-19 restrictions earlier this year.
Earnings on the up
Maersk has said it expects to earn up to $1.5bn more this year than originally forecast, as "agile" capacity deployment reduces costs.
The group is also predicting Ebitda this year of between $6bn and $7bn, before restructuring and integration expenses.
A simplified global ocean and logistics organisation is also being introduced.
The back offices of Maersk and Hamburg Sud will move closer together, but will remain two separate brands with a "differentiated service model", the shipowner said.
Clerc said earlier this month: "Over time, the value propositions of Maersk and Safmarine have converged, as both brands have been focusing on building a customer-centric culture and as the digital interactions with customers have increased.
He added: "With the integration of Safmarine, we can present Safmarine customers with the full ocean and supply chain offering and more scale. At the same time, I’m very excited to have Safmarine’s passion for customers closer to Maersk by uniting our teams."
Hamburg Sud was acquired in 2016 and employs 4,500 people. Damco and Safmarine have 2,300 and 1,100 workers, respectively.
