Bakkafrost lays off 140 processing staff

Bakkafrost is laying off 140 factory processing staff in the Faroe Islands, blaming the local tax regime and changing business conditions for the decision.

According to the radio station Kvf.fo, a church minister and a psychologist were present when the redundancies were announced at the company’s Glyvrar headquarters. Kvf said the atmosphere in the room was heavy with emotion as the workers, representing a range of nationalities, listened to the details of their redundancy.

Representatives from the Immigration Office, unemployment office and tax authority advised the affected workers on practical matters.

CEO Regin Jacobsen issued a statement saying: “As a result of changes in the Faroese revenue tax, Bakkafrost has adjusted the strategy for contracted VAP [value added products] to reduce contract exposure for 2024.

“For 2024, Bakkafrost has signed contracts covering around 9% of the expected harvest volumes in the Faroe Islands and Scotland combined, compared to 22% at same time last year.

“Over the last couple of months, we have had a reasonable hope that new political changes would be made in the Faroese revenue tax, but this is not the case at the moment.

He added: “We hoped that we could agree a sufficient amount of long-term contracts, so we could keep all our employees.

“But the conditions have changed, especially since the new revenue tax has been implemented. We had also hoped that new political changes would come in time as promised, but unfortunately we were let down.”

Bakkafrost announced lower Q3 profits and harvest targets last week.