lloydslist.com reported that Maersk Line is seeking over 280 voluntary officer redundancies from the UK and Denmark in a bid to slash costs across the company. Confirming the industry’s worst fears, it admitted that hopes of an early economic upturn have now been abandoned and frontline jobs are on the line.

The company is aiming to replace 170 of its 800 Danish seafarers with cheaper Asian crew and cut 113 of its 560 British officers through voluntary redundancies. While the company has stressed that the lay-offs will be voluntary, the UK cuts are understood to be essential to stem the current surplus of officers out of work thanks to the increasing amount of vessels being laid up.

Maersk Line has already said goodbye to around 7,000 employees worldwide over the past 18 months. The possibility of further job cuts has not been ruled out.

Mr Henrik Sloth head of marine human resources at AP Moller Maersk told Lloyd's List that "We just cannot carry on with a huge surplus of officers. We are doing this in the hope that there will be better times ahead soon, but we cannot live on hope alone."

As part of the UK cuts, the Maersk Company has announced that it will also no longer automatically employ cadets graduating from training with the Company, although this decision is open to review as market conditions improve.

In Denmark, Maersk Line will offer Danish officers with relatively low company seniority to take part in an early retirement and redundancy package. According to officials the package will be attractive to officers with a desire to work in land based jobs and will be offered to all Danish officers in Maersk Line with relative low company seniority, excluding Captains and Chief Engineers.

(Sourced from www.lloydslist.com)