Skanska UK waits for group to announce 3,000 job cuts

Workers at Skanska UK are awaiting the details of a major restructuring plan that will see 3,000 job losses across the Swedish construction group.

The company, the world’s fifth largest construction group, has issued a profit warning, removed a number of senior executives including its finance director and launched a restructuring in a bid to save £100m a year at its construction division.

Skanska has warned that its operating profit for last year was likely to be about SKr5.3bn (£474m), compared with expectations of SKr6.4bn. Skanska shares fell by 6% this week and this follows a drop of more than 25% in the past year amidst concerns over project write-downs on projects in the US as well as worries over potential housing bubbles in Norway and Sweden.

Skanska plans to reduce its unprofitable businesses in Poland, the US, UK, and Czech Republic by focusing on core construction activities. Redundancies are widely expected at the company, including in its UK division. Skanska say it is too early to predict where the cuts would be, as they are waiting for the results of a consultation process.

The company employs 6,000 staff in the UK and redundancies at its construction division are expected to save around £100m annually. Operating profit in the division has crashed from £320m in 2016 to £100m last year.

Skanska, whose new chief executive Anders Danielsson took over at the start of this year, has been involved in many high-profile construction projects such as enlarging the M25 around London, the Gherkin, the iconic Oresund bridge between Sweden and Denmark and Crossrail.