THE world's biggest shipping company, AP Moller-Maersk, will lay off some 200 people to cut costs as it faces a 25 per cent higher fuel costs because of a United Nations mandate to cut sulphur emissions, reports the Wall Street Journal.

'We have announced internally the need to save cost in our head office functions and that it will also lead to reductions both in and outside Denmark,' a Maersk spokesman said.



Sources say jobs will be cut at the company's headquarters in Copenhagen and at Hamburg Sud, the German container operator that Maersk bought in 2017.



Maersk is to focus more end-to-end logistics, warehousing and customs clearance. 'Maersk needs to build up our non-ocean services and this will affect ocean services,' one person familiar with the plan said.



This source said there are overlaps in jobs at the information technology department following the merger with Hamburg Sud, which originally saw its workforce cut by 200 people to around 900 after Maersk's takeover.



Maersk employs 75,000 people in more than 120 countries. The parent company this month reported a net profit of US$520 million in the third quarter, up 30 per cent year on year.










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