Evergreen Restructures and Consolidates
On Dec. 30, 2008, Evergreen Shipping Agency (America), agents for Evergreen Marine Corporation, announced that the company will consolidate some North America offices and reduce staff in order to deal with the downturn in ocean shipping business due to the worldwide financial crisis. Evergreen Line had previously announced capacity reductions on several trade lanes.
"The worldwide economic turmoil has created a situation we have not seen in our lifetimes," the company said in the statement to all North America employees. The measures being taken will reduce costs and put EGA on a more sustainable structure moving forward.
Offices impacted will include Baltimore, Charleston, Chicago, Norfolk and Toronto. The Salt Lake City office will close and the work will be assigned to Dallas. A number of new positions will open and EGA employees may apply for those spots. A severance package including salary and benefits will be given to employees whose positions will be eliminated. The changes will be implemented on or before March 15, 2009.
"It is disappointing and disheartening that we are faced with a decision that has also impacted virtually every other carrier in ocean shipping today," EGA's spokesperson said. "We are positioning EGA to survive the catastrophic economic crisis and to succeed when we recover from these difficult times."