Danish windpower company Vestas is to shed a further 3000 jobs by the end of next year, on top of those the beleagured company has already announced.

This will mean Vestas will have a global staff of 16,000 by the end of 2013 compared to the 22,700 it had at the start of this year.

Chief executive Ditlev Engel said today: “However difficult it is to make further cost savings and also further reduce the workforce, it is simply necessary in order to create an even leaner and more agile Vestas to ensure the company’s continued profitability in a very uncertain and unstable wind turbine market.”

He added that he expected some of the job losses “to happen through divestments, which means that our employees will maintain their jobs, only they will be working for a different employer”.

By the end of 2013, Vestas expects to save an €150m ($192m), which will bring the company’s yearly cost reductions since the end of 2011 to a total of €400m. These increased cost reductions will be realised through divestments, continuation of the hiring freeze and the additional layoffs. 

Engel said this further intensification of cost saving initiatives “happens as part of the plan to create a scalable and flexible business model ready to adapt quickly to the changing market conditions”.

He added that he expected 2013 “to be a tough year for the wind industry and to adapt to future uncertain market development we have decided to further intensify our cost saving plan to make sure we are scalable and able to react fast to the challenges we expect in the market in the coming years”.

Vestas announced the job losses as it revealed its results for the third quarter of this year. Revenue was €1.9bn in the third quarter of 2012 – an increase of 49 per cent compared to a year earlier.