WA
shipbuilder Austal will cut as many as 300 jobs by the year’s end as two major
contracts wind up.
The company
made 40 redundancies on Monday, which it said concerned only non-permanent
staff, and will continue to shrink its workforce. This peaked at around 600 with contracts for eight Cape Class patrol boats and two High Speed Support Vessels
for Oman.
This delivery
of the patrol boats will see the workforce be at half of its peak, and the
cyclical nature of the work meant a reduction in staff was natural and
necessary, said Austal.
The company’s Australian president Graham Backhouse told The West Australian that, “Now that
demand is close to finishing, we need to normalise our employee numbers.
“The Cape Class contract has been a significant and highly
successful contract for Austal and we have delivered vessels of exceptional
quality for our customer, the Australian Government, due largely to the skills
and expertise of our staff.”
Image: austal.com