APM Terminals announces job cut over 30% drop in import volume

APM Terminals Apapa, Nigeria’s busiest container terminal, Wednesday said it planned to cut down staff strength over sharp drop in import traffic as global oil prices have fallen by 50 percent over the past one year.

“With cargo volumes down 30 percent compared with a year ago, and even after extensive cost-cutting measures taken throughout the terminal, we are unfortunately being forced to reduce our staffing in view of the business realities of the current economic environment,” said Bunmi Pratt, head, human resources of APM Terminals, in statement issued Wednesday.

According to her, the effects of global price of oil falling from $114 per barrel in the summer of 2014 to less than $50 a barrel in October 2015 have rippled throughout the Nigerian economy, Africa’s largest economy, and are impacting staffing requirements at APM Terminals Apapa.

Oil and related petroleum products, she stated, represent more than 90 percent of Nigeria’s total exports, or approximately $90 billion in 2014, and the lion’s share of government revenue, which has seen austerity measures permeate the national and local economy.

The impact of this, she noted, has resulted to a sharp drop in demand for consumer goods, and this has been particularly acutely felt at APM Terminals Apapa, which handles over half of all Nigerian imports.

“Respect and compassion for all employees are the very foundation of our business model,” said Pratt, who noted that the company was working closely with the Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria (MWUN) during this period of the transition.

Statistics show that employment at APM Terminals Apapa, which began operations after a privatisation initiative in 2006, has risen during the past 10 years from 467 to approximately 1,000 in 2015.

Also, Nigeria’s annual economic growth rate has fallen from 6.3 percent in 2014 to a projected 4 percent in 2015, according to International Monetary Fund (IMF) calculations while the GDP is forecast to rise to 4.3 percent in 2016.