Jobs to go at NSK

NSK Bearings Europe Ltd has announced plans to shed almost 30% of its workforce.

The Northern Road bearings manufacturer has started negotiations to make up to 87 of 308 employees redundant.

NSK, formerly RHP, said the move was part of a continuing effort to ensure the factory remained competitive in the face of tough global economic conditions.

It said that global recession had led to reduced orders for the ball bearings it makes for the machine tools and spares industry.

The Newark plant is the only one within NSK Europe making bearings for this market.

A 30-day consultation with workers and the union, Unite, has started. It is proposed redundancies would take effect from January 31 to March 31.

The Newark plant director, Mr Maurice Lappin, said: “As we see people as a key resource, we very much regret that this is necessary, and initially will be seeking volunteers so that we can reduce numbers through voluntary rather than compulsory redundancy wherever possible.”

Mr Lappin said help to find work elsewhere would be available to anyone made redundant.

The Newark MP, Mr Patrick Mercer, said the job losses were another body blow to the town and a symptom of the current economic downturn.

Mr Mercer said the bad news hung over the town like a cloud.

“These are specialised and well paid jobs and I would suspect that each is a wage packet taken home by a Newark person,” he said.

The manufacture of bearings for the machine tools and spares industry is now the only work done at Northern Road.

Previously the factory made precision bearings for planes, trains and road vehicles but bearings for wheeled vehicles are now made elsewhere and NSK left the aeronautical business in 1992.

Alan Ransome and Co, which later became Ransome and Marles and Ransome, Hoffman and Pollard or RHP, opened the ball bearing factory in 1900.

In 1990 RHP was bought by the Japanese firm of NSK who re-named it NSK-RHP Bearings Ltd. It became NSK in January 2001.

NSK was founded in Japan in 1916 and set up its European arm in 1974.

There are to be other job losses at NSK’s automotive plant at Peterlee in the north-east and its bearings plants in Poland and Germany.

The NSK group is a global supplier of bearings, automotive components and steering systems with an annual turnover of nearly £5bn.

The NSK group employs more than 23,000 people worldwide.