STX Finland is to start employer-employee negotiations in Turku and Rauma shipyards to reduce personnel in January 8.
As a result of the company's financial situation and the loss to France an order for a third Oasis class cruise ship, the company's fixed costs should be reduced by 30 percent.
Jari Aalto, shop steward at the Turku shipyard this may mean "several hundred" jobs cuts.
Aalto says, the situation was inevitable, because the STX's Finnish shipyards have been operating at a loss for several years, and both yards are now under utilised.
The Turku shipyard has received two cruise ship orders from TUI Cruises in Germany, and the production of the first ship has already begun. However, funding of either vessels is not yet complete.
STX unsuccessfully requested €50 million subordinated loan from the Finnish government to be secure Royal Caribbean's and TUI's shipbuilding.
"Now it is extremely important that financing of the TUI ships will be concluded successfully. If the ships are lost, it means the Finnish shipbuilding industry would be run down,” Jari Aalto says.
