625 job cuts and factory close at manroland

Closures and cutbacks at manroland as the company shuts down its Mainhausen factory and reduces its staff numbers.

Of these redundancies, 515 jobs were lost in the sheetfed press business sector and 110 in the web press business sector over the years 2009 and 2010. The existing product lines assembled at the Mainhausen location will now be assembled into manroland’s main sheetfed.

There are currently 8.656 manroland employees worldwide.

According to a statement from the company, the move was necessary in order to safeguard the company’s long-term performance. “manroland must align factory and fixed cost structures and thus its cost basis to the difficult situation. Constructive discussions have commenced with the employees’ representatives,” the statement said.

Customers’ reluctance to invest in new technology has hit manroland hard. The group’s order intake decline by 20 per cent in the 2008 fiscal year. Due to the ongoing decline in orders, short-time working has been extended and will also start for the Augsburg web press operations in March this year.

These less-than-enthusiastic prospects for manroland are reflective of the current market for offset printing presses. As one source remarked, “Will the last person to leave the offset industry please turn out the lights.”