Stora Enso is preparing changes at its Uimaharju wood-processing site in Finland, putting the future organisation of its 240,000 m\u00b3\/year sawmill under review at a time when Nordic producers continue to contend with a difficult sawn timber market.<\/p>\n
The Finnish-Swedish forest products group has opened formal employee consultations covering the Uimaharju sawmill and the Enocell pulp operation located at the same site in North Karelia. A maximum of 35 positions could disappear as a result of the process.<\/p>\n
The consultations involve some 380 employees. Stora Enso has yet to determine where the reductions would be made, and there is currently no separate figure for the number of sawmill jobs that could be affected.<\/p>\n
For the timber business, the announcement comes against an unfavourable combination of weak end-user demand and pressure on production costs. European construction has yet to generate a convincing recovery in lumber consumption, leaving sawmills cautious over production and sales prospects. Finnish mills have at the same time been operating with comparatively expensive sawlogs, limiting the benefit of any improvement in selling prices.<\/p>\n
Uimaharju is a long-established part of Stora Enso's Finnish sawmilling network. The sawmill dates from 1951 and can manufacture about 240,000 m\u00b3 of sawn timber annually, with construction and joinery among its principal end-use markets.<\/p>\n
Stora Enso has not announced a reduction in this capacity or a change in the sawmill's production programme. The current process is focused on staffing and the way the Uimaharju organisation is structured.<\/p>\n
Potential measures extend beyond redundancies. Management is examining how work is divided across the site and whether functions can be reorganised or combined. This could result in revised responsibilities and changes to a number of existing positions.<\/p>\n
The company links the review to both the performance of the Uimaharju operations and continued instability in their markets.<\/p>\n
Ilpo R\u00e4ty, who heads the Uimaharju business unit, said the site continues to be affected by a difficult economic and geopolitical environment. He said the changes under consideration are aimed at raising efficiency and improving profitability.<\/p>\n
The employment process also covers Enocell, Stora Enso's pulp operation at Uimaharju. Consequently, the headline figure of 35 potential job losses should not be interpreted as a reduction relating solely to the sawmill.<\/p>\n
Enocell has considerably larger output by volume in its own product segment, with capacity of about 630,000 tonnes of pulp annually. The mill produces softwood pulp as well as unbleached kraft pulp and has been operating at Uimaharju since the late 1960s.<\/p>\n
The proximity of the two plants creates an integrated wood-processing complex. Sawlogs can be directed to lumber production while other wood assortments and material flows serve pulp manufacturing, allowing infrastructure and raw material supply to be managed across the site.<\/p>\n
Located roughly 50 kilometres north-east of Joensuu, Uimaharju sits in one of Finland's main forestry regions. This makes developments at the site relevant not only for employment but also for regional timber demand.<\/p>\n
At Uimaharju, Stora Enso has so far given no indication that the current review will lead to lower sawmill capacity. The immediate issue is the cost and organisational structure of the site rather than the future of the mill itself.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":99572,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5204],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n