Vestas Wind Systems A/S is cutting an additional 1,400 jobs to lower costs by more than 250 million euro, or $311 million, in preparation for a decline in wind turbines installations it expects next year.
About 280 of those jobs will be in the “Americas,” Vestas chief executive Ditlev Engel said in a call with analysts.
In the past two weeks, 120 workers have lost their jobs at Vestas plants in Brighton and Pueblo. The company employs about 1,570 people in Colorado and 3,000 in North America.
Engel said that in the second half of 2012, Vestas would have to decide the size of the company’s “manufacturing footprint, including the United States.”
The world’s biggest maker of the machines said it expects to have 19,000 employees at the end of the year, down 16 percent from the end of last year. It announced 2,335 job cuts in January and is still considering whether to eliminate 1,600 jobs in the U.S., which will depend on a tax credit that expires this year.
“We are now intensifying this, which means we will get to about 3,700 job cuts before year-end,” Engel said Wednesday in an interview on Bloomberg Television. “That’s preparing for what we expect to be quite a tough 2013.”
Engel said he could “never rule out” more reductions.
Vestas is suffering from increased competition from rivals at the same time governments from the United States to Europe are slashing subsidies.
The loss for the first half widened to 170 million euro from 30 million euro a year ago as margins narrowed, Vestas said.
