Oil company OMV Petrom to lay off 3,000 workers

OMV Petrom, Romania's largest oil company, will lay off about 10 percent of its employees, officials said Wednesday.

Regional labor official Dragos Parvan said that 3,000 Romanian workers from Petrom will lose their jobs beginning Feb. 1.

Petrom spokesman Dan Pazara said the layoffs are "nothing new" and part of a long- term process to modernize the company and make it more efficient.

Petrom said it will give severance pay to workers losing their jobs and pay for their retraining courses.

A majority share of Petrom was sold by Romania to Austrian group OMV AG in 2004 for euro1.5 billion ($1.97 billion). The company employs about 30,000 people.

Finance Minister Gheorghe Pogea said that unemployment in Romania will increase from 4.4 percent to about 5.4 percent in 2009.

Thousands of workers in heavy industry and the automobile industry have been laid off in recent months due to a drop in sales. The national currency, the leu, has lost about 20 percent of its value in the last year.

Source : AP
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