Vestas makes 110 job cuts in the US

UNITED STATES: Vestas has made around 110 redundancies at its blade manufacturing plants in Windsor and Brighton, Colorado.

by James Quilter 22 February 2013

Vestas Windsor plant... one of two factories affected

The decision follows cuts to employee working hours at the two plants in December, in preparation for a post-PTC slowdown in the US wind sector.

The company had told employees at the factories that it was reducing their weekly hours from 40 to 32. The change will take effect in January. Following the redundancies, workers will be put back onto a 40-hour week.

Vestas said the redundancies did not impact on the nacelle or tower factories in Brighton and Pueblo respectively.

In a statement Vestas said: "The extension of the PTC did not affect our projections to deliver between 4 and 5GW worldwide this year and to employ no more than 16,000 people globally by the end of 2013."

Both plants have been affected by Vestas restructuring of its US business. In October, the Danish manufacturer cut 200 jobs at its Windsor plant and 80 at Brighton. The company has also closed all of its US research and development facilities.

Coincidentally, Vestas is hiring around the same number of workers at its tower factory in Pueblo, following an order from an unnamed manufacturer.