Business review

A consultation launched by Veka may result in job losses, the company has warned, following financial difficulty faced by its customers.

Having reopened on May 11 following the coronavirus pandemic lockdown, it has become clear in the recent weeks that the business is not going to bounce-back to pre Covid-19 levels and action must be taken to rescale the business in light of significantly reduced sales, the company said.

Managing director of Veka Dave Jones said: “Veka has taken a number of actions over the past months to mitigate the effects of Covid-19 from arranging financial support to putting all non-essential spend on indefinite hold. However, upon our return on May 11, and speaking with our customer base over recent weeks, we have identified some significant customer losses, one of whom went into administration just last week which will have a substantial impact on our business.”

Veka started the process on Monday June 15, initially looking to establish an employee-elected committee responsible for taking group redundancy consultations, and from there Veka will follow the process as set out by relevant employment law rules and regulations.

“Having taken all available options to us to ensure our business remains sustainable, we are now forced to take more prudent approach to all company expenditure and to review the resource requirements in light of this predicted drop in sales,” Dave said. “That said, at this stage we cannot confirm exact numbers of potential redundancies. However, we will continue to monitor situation on a daily basis throughout the process.

“This is not the year we, the board of directors, had planned for Veka in 2020 and we are disappointed that Covid-19 has had such an impact on our economy, industry and business despite the strong support packages from the government, and saddened that this will ultimately result in losing valued employees.” Continue