Thousands of layoffs at state-linked companies in Abu Dhabi are a fresh sign the Persian Gulf’s wealthy oil states are hunkering down for a long period of austerity as low crude prices pressure their economies.
Since the middle of last year, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and other countries in the region have curbed spending on some construction projects and reduced energy subsidies to limit budget deficits caused by cheap oil.
Now some governments are also starting to reduce staff at the companies they control, many of them in the energy industry, in order to ensure the firms are not a drain on state finances if oil prices stay low for several years.
Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC), which employs about 55,000 staff, has cut hundreds of jobs in the past few months and it to have reduced its workforce by at least 5,000 by the end of this year, sources familiar with the matter told reporters.
The reduction is to occur across most of its 17 subsidiaries as part of a restructuring following a reshuffle of the firm’s leadership this month, they said.
An ADNOC spokesman did not confirm or deny the cuts, but said: “In keeping with the entire oil and gas industry, ADNOC is constantly looking at ways to be more efficient and more profitable, particularly in the current market environment.”
The United Arab Emirates’ oil and gas recruitment market is set for its most difficult year in more than a decade this year, a report from recruiters Morgan McKinley said.
“The oil and gas industry is still feeling the pain, as was to be expected. Overall redundancies have been on the increase,” managing director for the region Trefor Murphy said.
Most layoffs at Abu Dhabi state firms are not in response to production cutbacks; the United Arab Emirates has not reduced its oil output and says it is proceeding with long-planned oil and gas development projects.
Nor do the layoffs mean Abu Dhabi is running out of money. With hundreds of billions of dollars in its sovereign wealth fund, the emirate could draw down its reserves to sustain current levels of spending for decades.
However, the government wants to slow the drawdown as it looks ahead to the possibility of many years of low oil prices.
Last year, Abu Dhabi acted ahead of other Persian Gulf states in cutting domestic fuel and electricity subsidies. Now it is applying the same approach to state-linked firms.
In Qatar, state-controlled firms such as Qatar Petroleum and Qatar Railways Co have been laying off staff. State companies in other states such as Saudi Arabia and Oman have been looking at ways to reduce costs, but have so far not resorted to major job cuts.
Most cuts at state firms in Abu Dhabi and elsewhere involve foreign staff rather than locals, because governments want to limit unemployment among their citizens.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”