Restructuring events
European Restructuring Monitor (ERM)
The restructuring events database contains factsheets with data on large-scale restructuring events reported in the principal national media and company websites in each EU Member State. This database was created in 2002.
Stora Enso, a Finnish pulp and paper company plans to implement the closure of the Kemijärvi pulp mill in Finnish Lapland and the Summa paper mill in Hamina on the south coast. The company announced on 10 January 2008 that Summa is to close by the end of January 2008. The Kemijärvi pulp mill will stay open until the end of April 2008. Stora Enso announced in October 2007 its intention to close down permanently the Summa paper mill and one magazine paper machine at the Anjala mill, as well as its pulp mills in Kemijärvi.
According to the company, these actions are taken ”in response to dramatic cost increases and in order to safeguard long-term profitability. On 10 January 2008, Stora Enso also reviewed its restructuring plan. One paper machine is to be closed at the Anjala paper mill in Anjalankoski in November 2008, with s loss of 170 jobs. At the Summa paper mill, 450 workers are to be made redundant. Further 122 jobs will be lost cut in the Kymenlaakso area in the southeast, and 29 at the Helsinki offices. The number of personnel affected by the planned mill closures will amount to 985 jobs lost in Finland instead of the planned 1,100 reductions in October 2007. Of those to leave, 170 were working on fixed-term contracts, and 255 have access to various pension arrangements. The company says that the remaining 560 will have access to retraining and job placement services. Kemijärvi residents have collected statements from experts who insist that there is enough wood in the area to keep the Kemijärvi pulp mill running.
Stora Enso also refused to consider proposals to turn the Kemijärvi mill into a production facility for biodiesel or ethanol fuel. The reason given for closing down the Summa paper mill was that long-term profitability forecasts looked weak. Stora Enso CEO Jouko Karvinen said that the company would double its EUR 5 million support package for the creation of new jobs. The state has already announced that it will support employment to the tune of EUR 15 million.
Background information on the Stora Enso case is available on the European Industrial Relations Observatory (EIRO).
Eurofound (2007), Stora Enso, Closure in Finland, factsheet number 65970, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://apps.eurofound.europa.eu/restructuring-events/detail/65970.
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