February 20, 2017 | Ad hoc announcement pursuant to Art. 53 LR
Burckhardt Compression introduces short-time working for part of its workforce in Winterthur
As already communicated by Burckhardt Compression in August and November of 2016, the market environment for its compressor manufacturing business has been unusually weak and order intake at the Systems Division has dropped significantly below the levels from the preceding years. The introduction of short-term working, as likewise announced last year, is no longer avoidable and will begin in March 2017 for some of the employees in Winterthur. The order intake in the service business, in contrast, has remained at a pleasing level.
Beginning in March 2017, approximately 200 of the 700 Burckhardt Compression employees in Winterthur will be working short-time. The corresponding request has been approved by the Canton of Zurich’s Office for Economy and Labor. This action is being taken due to the significantly lower inflow of orders for compressor systems. Specifically, order intake for gas transport and storage compressor systems within the marine compressor business has declined significantly. For these applications Burckhardt Compression manufactures only single compressors. The low order intake has therefore led to a significantly lower rate of capacity utilization at the Winterthur site, which made the introduction of short-time working inevitable.
