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Södra Ends Furlough Schemes at Sawmills in Orrefors and Mönsterås, SwedenMay 12, 2020 - Södra announced that it has ended furlough schemes that began in April at its sawmills in Orrefors and Mönsterås, Sweden. Södra ended the furlough scheme at Orrefors at the end of April and now at Mönsterås. At the beginning of April, Södra announced furlough schemes at its sawmills in Orrefors, Mönsterås and Hamina (Finland) in light of reduced demand related to the ongoing pandemic. "We decided to introduce a furlough scheme because the UK was closed," said Jörgen Lindquist, President of the Södra Wood business area. "The UK market is gradually re-opening and we have also identified new business opportunities, which is why we will be resuming normal production rates at Mönsterås by 18 May. "We were already low-staffed at Mönsterås before the crisis and will now need to recruit 5-6 new employees when we scale up to full production," Lindquist added. Södra is waiting to restart production at the sawmill in Hamina, however, which essentially delivers only to the UK. "We are seeing several positive signals and monitoring the market carefully in order to decide when we should resume full production at Hamina," Lindquist noted. Södra said it will continue to prioritize the harvesting of damaged forest, and other harvesting will be subject to geographic differences, depending on possible deliveries to the mills. Södra's construction timber is produced at the company's seven sawmills — six in Sweden and one in Finland. About SödraSödra is Sweden's largest forest-owner association, with 52,000 forest owners as its members. Södra is also an international forest industry Group, with operations based on processing its members' forest products, such as softwood and hardwood pulp, and wood products. For further information, visit: www.sodra.com SOURCE: Södra |
