MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Marine Harvest lay-offs deepen salmon farming sector crisis

Cuts in production and staff numbers announced by Marine Harvest executives further aggravate the ongoing salmon industry crisis. (Photo: FIS)

Directors at Marine Harvest in Chile, the largest salmon producer in the world, will begin to lay off nearly 1,200 workers in June to compensate for financial losses incurred as a result of an infectious salmon anaemia (ISA) viral outbreaks that took place is some of its production sites.

This painful measure and an announced operational reduction of 50,000 tonnes of farmed salmon further deepens the ongoing crisis assailing the Chilean sector. The Marine Harvest emergency plan includes closing down eight fish farming centres and two processing plants. The company's executive directors in Norway announced the new measures following an official disclosure of its markedly discouraging fourth quarter results. Marine Harvest's operational earnings for last year registered an 11.4 per cent nose dive compared to 2006, the company announced last Friday. It's profits for the October - December financial quarter was a mere EUR 470 million, compared to the EUR 564.8 million obtained in the fourth quarter of 2006. President and CEO of Marine Harvest ASA, Leif Frode Onarheim, said that "in order to recover its Chilean business unit, the company must reduce its production in the upcoming months." Marine Harvest Chile reduced production by half due to ISA-infected fish and fish kills, and forced early harvests that provoked a huge drop in tonnage, El Mercurioreports. Human Resource Vice-Manager Jose Pedro Alvarez confirmed that all local Marine Harvest management offices notified their employees of the lay-offs "immediately after the measure was approved in Norway and with four months of warning," as a sign of "commitment and loyalty to the company's workers." Once the fish inventories are harvested between March and June, the lay-offs will take place so as to "temporarily" close eight Atlantic salmon-fattening centres and five freshwater centres located in Region X. The company insisted they are not leaving the Lagos Region and that, instead, a new production model will be implemented to recover the zone affected by the ISA virus as soon as possible, and to reduce its biological burden by alternating the use of its centres. Lagos Region Mayor Sergio Galilea said he hopes the company will revise its decision and expressed concern "over the time span the recovery plan is set to take place." "By no means is this good news," said the President of Chilean Salmon Industry Association AG (SalmonChile) Cesar Barros of the lay-offs. He admitted, however, that "when companies produce reduced margins they often must take drastic to dire measures." The President of the National Confederation of Chilean Salmon Industry Workers, Javier Ugarte, requested that the Central Government subsidise the 1,200 workers set to be laid off by Marine Harvest in June.