# Maersk Line to Cut 4,000 Jobs, Scales Back Shipbuilding Plans-catch up in shipping



## Geoff Gower (Sep 8, 2011)

COPENHAGEN, Nov 4 (Reuters) – Maersk Line, the world’s largest container shipping company, said on Wednesday it will slash costs, cut staff by almost a fifth and pull out of vessel orders as trade along the busiest routes in the world, from Asia to Europe, slows down.The business, part of the A.P. Moller-Maersk conglomerate , is a bellwether for global trade and the shipping industry, which is run mainly by unlisted companies not required to make their assessments or financial cir***stances public. The plans come two weeks after A.P. Moller-Maersk cut its 2015 profit forecast by 15 percent, blaming a slowdown in the container shipping market.
Maersk will report its third quarter earnings on Friday. “A number of markets have disappointed with a lot weaker demand than expected this year,” Maersk Line Chief Executive Soren Skou told reporters on a conference call. “And it’s first of all Asia to Europe, which has had negative growth. Europeans have been importing less this year from Asia than last year and that was frankly a surprise.” Raw material trade routes, such as West Africa and the east coast of Latin America, had also slowed, Skou said, because “what went up with China, went down with China,” Skou said. China’s factory activity fell for an eighth straight month in October, a private survey showed on Monday, pointing to continued sluggishness in the world’s second-largest economy. The cost of transporting a container has slumped this year compared to already weak previous years due to overcapacity in the shipping market as trade volumes failed to recover from the 2008 financial crisis. Weekly freight spot rates on Asia to Europe routes have been languishing below $1,000 per 20-foot container, according to the Shanghai Containerised Freight Index, spending all but five weeks of the year at or below levels deemed profitable.


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## slick (Mar 31, 2006)

All,
Looks like they've been reading the British Shipowners Hand Book, "What to do in a Downturn".
Sack everybody!!

Yours aye,

slick


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## fred henderson (Jun 13, 2005)

Bulk Carriers are in an even worse state than Container Ships. The Baltic Dry Index which measures the voyage charter rate for bulk trades is down 55% over the past year and still falling.


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## Ron Stringer (Mar 15, 2005)

slick said:


> All,
> Looks like they've been reading the British Shipowners Hand Book, "What to do in a Downturn". Sack everybody!!


Not sure what else you can do with people who are employed to run a vessel that has in effect been 'sacked' i.e. cannot find a cargo and is therefore not needed. Just like you and me, when their income is being cut, companies have to cut back on outgoings and hope to survive until the good times come back. 

We seem to be entering yet another, deepening, recession and nobody seems able to do anything about it nor can they offer any credible prediction of when it will end. Mind you, shipping seems always to have been boom or bust, regardless of the ups and downs of general commerce. When rates are good shipowners plunge headlong into new-building programmes, even though they must know that the resultant increase in available ship numbers will bring the rates crashing down a few years later. Only if world commerce continues to grow exponentially can the trade enjoy ever-increasing rates for an ever-increasing number of vessels. 

A pipe dream.


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## A.D.FROST (Sep 1, 2008)

even laying up one of it's Triple"E"s.(waiting for the elfs to get a move on)


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## Jim Mclaughlin (Oct 9, 2008)

Yip 
looks like they have already layed up one of there flagship triple E vessels.
A volatile industry to say the least.
Jim

Snap! AD


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## woodend (Nov 23, 2009)

It would appear to have gone way beyond the volatile into the depressed! Bulkies are suffering, box boats are suffering, I imagine with the VW / PORCHE debacle, car carriers will be next. Who would have thought in the 60 / 70 era that vthere would be such an upsurge in people carriers that shows no sign of diminishing.[=P]


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## alan ward (Jul 20, 2009)

A.D.FROST said:


> even laying up one of it's Triple"E"s.(waiting for the elfs to get a move on)


Christmas stock is well in hand,wholesalers have been retailing the bulk stuff since early October


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## tiachapman (Mar 25, 2008)

unmaned ships is the only answer robots can do the job just as well.


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## tiachapman (Mar 25, 2008)

remember whe the Iron Mike came in


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## billshaver (Sep 2, 2015)

just as fickle as oil biz..and the dairy farmers...you think they'd have an eye on supply management....instead of boom & bust....


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## jimthehat (Aug 5, 2006)

Just spoke with my grandson who is up waiting to take his second mates orals,he says that he and others up at have got jobs to return to,but he will get that confirmed when he meets with the fleet training officer on monday,
jim


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