Marine repair shop?
The federal government wants to submit an offer for the Rostock shipyard
6/21/2022, 12:46 am
The plans are becoming more concrete: The Ministry of Defense wants to use the Rostock location of the insolvent MV Werfen to repair naval ships on its own. This could offer prospects for up to 500 employees. But you would probably have to reckon with cutbacks.
After the insolvency of the MV shipyards, there are signs of work on a larger scale for the shipbuilders at the Rostock location. The federal government wants to buy the shipyard as a repair shop for the navy. An offer should be made on Friday, the Ministry of Defense explained to politicians in the Bundestag. According to information from the German Press Agency, the Ministry of Defense was making far-reaching plans for an offer to take over the company in order to ensure the repair of naval ships there on its own in the future.
The plans, which have not yet been completed, envisage that the Federal Agency for Real Estate Tasks (BImA) could take over the infrastructure of the shipyard. The form in which shipyard workers can switch to public service is the subject of consultations. A figure of around 400 to 500 employees is mentioned. Sometimes lower salaries are paid, but job security is then considered high.
A submission by the Schwerin Ministry of Finance to the finance committee of the state parliament states: “With the takeover by the naval arsenal, around 500 secure jobs could gradually be created at the site with the target from September 2022.” The letter indicates the first week of July as the expected date of a decision on the acquisition.
At the beginning of June, the committee approved the extension of the shipyard transfer company. Around 1500 remaining employees of the insolvent MV shipyards are protected from imminent unemployment until October 31st. Staff meetings are planned for Wednesday at the three locations in the country. The shipyard in Wismar already has a new owner. The submarine builder ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems (TKMS) in Kiel bought the shipyard in order to have naval ships built there in the future.
800 people could be hired in Wismar
According to the letter from the Treasury Department, the bankruptcy administration is working on hiring up to 100 engineers to TKMS in order to retain the specialists. In addition, around 150 employees from the transfer company and a further 150 from the processing teams are to be taken on by TKMS this year for site preparation. The “Schweriner Volkszeitung” reported on this.
TKMS boss Oliver Burkhard described the shipyard in Wismar as a very good addition to the main business in Kiel, which is already reaching its capacity limits. He held out the prospect of initially hiring 800 people for Wismar. However, transitional solutions would still have to be found for most of them before the start of production in about two years.
The shipyard site in Stralsund was taken over by the city after the shipyards went bankrupt in order to develop a maritime business park there. Specific projects have not yet been announced. Insolvency was filed for the MV shipyards with their once 3,000 shipbuilders after a long stalemate at the beginning of the year. The shipyard owner Genting Hong Kong, which is mainly active in the areas of tourism and gambling and had cruise ships produced at the MV shipyards for its own needs, had run out of money as a result of the corona pandemic. Even federal and state rescue packages could not prevent the shipyard bankruptcy.