Pilkington owner to axe 5,800 jobs

THE parent company of North West glass giant Pilkington has announced plans to axe 15% of its workforce – some 5,800 people, in response to the economic downturn.

Japanese giant NSG Group said the decline in demand since last November had been “unprecedented” and that radical measures are needed to improve profits by rationalising the business.

NSG employs around 2,000 people in the North West, the majority at the factory in Pilkington’s home town of St Helens and it has a second site near Ormskirk. It primarily supplies glass to the automotive and building sectors, which are among the worst affected by the recession.

Although the news is grim, a source at the company said  the number of job losses in the region would not be substantial.

Earlier this week it emerged that NSG had refinanced £300m of the £1.8bn debt it used to buy Pilkington in 2006.

Along with the job losses, Tokyo-based NSG said it now expects to post a loss for the year of around £171m, as a result of the cost of restructuring the business and the decline in orders.

NSG is led by former Pilkington chief executive Stuart Chambers, one of just a handful of Westerners leading major Japanese companies.