Danish wind giant Ørsted announced today that it would cut around 2,000 jobs, or around 25% of its workforce, over the next two years. It will lay off around 500 employees in Q4 2025, including 235 in Denmark.
Ørsted says it has “sharpened its geographical and technological focus” and will “primarily be directing it towards offshore wind in Europe and select markets in the Asia-Pacific region in the future,” and that it needs to “improve its competitiveness. ” The world’s largest offshore wind developer says its annual savings as a result are expected to amount to DKK 2 billion ($311 million) from 2028.
“This is a necessary consequence of our decision to focus our business and that we’ll be finalizing our large construction portfolio in the coming years – which is why we’ll need fewer employees. At the same time, we want to create a more efficient and flexible organization and a more competitive Ørsted, ready to bid on new value-accretive offshore wind projects,” said Rasmus Errboe, CEO of Ørsted.
The US is excluded from its plan because of Donald Trump’s hostility toward renewables, particularly wind power, which has caused a lot of market uncertainty on top of high interest rates and supply chain challenges. On August 22, the director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management sent a vague letter to Ørsted commanding it to halt all activities on the fully permitted Revolution Wind, citing “national security interests,” yet providing no details.
In September, a federal judge cleared the way for Ørsted’s nearly complete 704-megawatt (MW) Revolution Wind offshore wind farm to restart construction, overturning a stop-work order imposed by the Trump administration. Revolution Wind was already about 80% complete, with all turbine foundations and 45 of 65 turbines successfully installed, and is expected to power 350,000 homes in Rhode Island and Connecticut. Ørsted lost over $2 million a day during the stop-work order.
According to Reuters, “When asked if the job cuts were due to the problems in the US, Errboe told journalists the decision was not related to specific US projects.”
Earlier this week, Ørsted raised $9.42 billion through a heavily discounted rights issue to shore up its balance sheet following the costly Revolution Wind setback.
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