UPM Raflatac announces job and capacity cuts

The company plans to close self-adhesive labelstock production lines and reduce slitting capacity in the UK, France, Germany, Hungary and Finland.

A coating line will be closed at UPM Raflatac’s Scarborough facility and slitting and further coating capacity will be reduced through shift reductions.

Scarborough site director Alan Wright praised his workforce during this extremely difficult time and said the business will now enter in to negotiations with Unite.

He said: “We have come under scrutiny as a site, but we have come through with a clear role in the future of the European operations.”

A second coating line will be closed in Nancy, France in addition to a slitting and distribution terminal in Düsseldorf, Germany and another in Tatabanya, Hungary.

Approximately 340 employees are employed across these sites, accounting for 20% of UPM Raflatac’s total personnel in Europe.

President of UPM’s engineered materials business group Jussi Vanhanen blamed “weak economic conditions” for weakening demand for self-adhesive labelstock in Western Europe.

Vanhanen predicted that this trend would continue for the foreseeable future.

He said: “We have to take these difficult, but vital steps to adjust capacity to the demand outlook of our customers, and to secure profitability.”

The restructuring is expected to be complete by the end of 2009.

At the start of November UPM confirmed that it would close two Finnish mills by the end of the year, with the loss of 700 jobs.

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