Business News

Stora Enso plans temporary lay-offs at sawmills in Finland

Tuesday 15. June 2010 - Stora Enso will start co-determination negotiations concerning possible temporary lay-offs at its Finnish sawmills, which are at Kitee, Uimaharju, Varkaus and Honkalahti. The planned lay-offs are in response to the threat that wood cost levels in Finland will become even more uncompetitive if current trends continue.

“We are increasingly concerned by the trend in Finnish raw material prices. We
need to prepare ourselves to take rapid corrective actions if raw material
prices continue to escalate and can no longer be compensated by increases in
end-product prices or efficiency improvements,” says Hannu Kasurinen, EVP, Stora
Enso Wood Products.

The total number of employees affected by the co-determination negotiations in
Finland is about 500. The negotiations address the plan to curtail production at
individual sawmills if necessary through temporary lay-offs between 1 September
and 31 December 2010. In Finland Stora Enso has a total capacity of about 1.3
million cubic metres of sawn timber per year.