HHI to Integrate Shipbuilding Business Division and Offshore Business Division

Hyundai Heavy Industries’ Ulsan shipyard

Hyundai Heavy Industries announced on June 23 that it will integrate the Shipbuilding Business Division and Offshore Business Division on July 1 as the latter has little work to do.

The shipbuilder plans to relocate workers of the Offshore Business Division to the Merchant Ship Section to prevent them from loitering and use empty inner walls of the offshore plant building site to build merchant ships such as liquefied natural gas (LNG) carriers.

In addition, the company will scale back its organization by about 20 percent through the integration of departments doing similar work.

Hyundai Heavy Industries Group has decided not to make promotions during its regular personnel reshuffle in the first half of 2020. Instead, it will force about 20 percent of its executives to quit. As a result, the total number of executives at Hyundai Heavy Industries Group is expected to fall by 50 from previous 260.

This is not the first time that Hyundai Heavy Industries Group has come up with an intensive restructuring plan. In 2014, when the group suffered from less profitable orders, it ousted more than 30 percent of its executives. In 2016, it also went through a restructuring to reduce 25 percent of the executives at five affiliates as the shipbuilding industry continued to suffer a slump. Industry observers say that further restructuring actions are likely to be taken in light of the 2016 experience.