Giant Oil Company, BP Will Lay Off 4,700 Employees This Year

BP (Photo: Daily Climate)

JAKARTA - The giant oil company, BP plans to cut 5 percent of its 90,000 workers as part of efforts to cut costs.

The British oil giant notified his employees in a memo on Thursday, January 15.

The memo notifies that it will cut about 4,700 jobs this year. The company also said it would cut 3,000 contractor roles and 2,600 of the contractors have stepped down.

"(Last year) we started a multi-year program to simplify and focus BP," a company spokesperson told CNN Business on Saturday, January 18.

"We are strengthening competitiveness and building resilience as we lower costs, encourage increased performance, and take advantage of our distinctive abilities," he said.

So far, the number of BP employees has grown significantly in recent years. This is because BP has acquired a large business with labor.

However, the spokesman declined to say how the layoff mechanism would be distributed to all of the company's business and territory, including the United States.

Last April, BP CEO Murray Auchincloss set a target to reduce costs by $2 billion by the end of 2026 from the level in 2023.

In his memo to employees, he also said the company had stopped or bridged 30 projects since June and stepped up efforts to digitize its operations, among other measures.