Shell to cut up to 9,000 jobs as demand for oil collapses due to coronavirus

Shell has announced plans for between 7,000 – 9,000 job cuts from its global workforce by the end of 2022.

The energy giant, which has been grappling with the effects of the oil price downturn and Covid-19, follows rival BP who earlier this year announced plans for 10,000 job cuts.

Shell, which employs 6,000 people in the UK, including 1,000 directly in its Upstream oil and gas business in the country, said “reduced orgniasational complexity” is to save between $2billion – $2.5billion by 2022 on an annual basis.

The figure will include 1,500 who have agreed to take voluntary redundancy by the end of this year.

Shell declined to say how many UK jobs will be cut.

It comes after UK country manager Sinead Lynch said earlier this year the company had to “look long and hard” at its choices.

Job cuts of 9,000 would represent a roughly 10.5% reduction of the Shell global workforce of 86,000.

CEO Ben van Beurden described it as an “extremely tough process” but “reducing cost is essential”.

He referred to bringing technical support staff for its global assets “all into one place”, and there being “too many people in the middle” of the organisation in terms of management “layers”.

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