Maersk to lay off 700 in China

China - AP Moller-Maersk has announced the closure of one of its two global customer service centres (GSC) in China. This is expected to cause approximately 700 of their employees to be redundant by mid-2009.

Maersk said it will close its Guangzhou service centre in a phased manner between now to the first half of 2009. On the contrary, the company's service centre in Shenzhen is expected to expand on top of continuing current operations.

"This development affects approximately 700 positions in Guangzhou GSC. A number of employees will be transferred to the service centre at Shenzhen," said Maersk in an email reply to Lloyd's List.

The company continued, "This decision was driven by a number of factors, including the global economic slowdown which has affected our business volumes, as well as our ongoing effort to improve our systems and processes, especially over the past 12 months."

Maersk said its analysis has revealed that the capacity in Guangzhou GSC is over the capacity required to sustain the healthy growth of its business as a whole.

The company said it would try to find alternative jobs for employees affected by the move through short-term secondments, cross-postings, or redeployment in other business units elsewhere within its network.

"Those staff, to whom we cannot offer alternative employment will be given a severance package, which is fully compliant with both Chinese law and industry best practices," said Maersk.