Shipping companies trim New Jersey offices

Shipping companies trim New Jersey offices Hanjin Shipping is reducing its workforce at its regional headquarters in Paramus, N.J., by about 60 workers in November and relocating workers to other locations.
   It’s just the latest shipping company planning staff reductions in the New York area.
   Bill Rooney, managing director for the company’s operations in North and South America, said jobs will be relocated to Atlanta and Phoenix.
   Such relocations, he noted, are “not new, this has been going on in the industry for some 30 years.” Centralizing workers performing similar functions in fewer locations will improve training and management of employees. Jobs being relocated are in areas such as equipment management, local truck dispatch, documentation, and customer service.
   About 140 people will remain at Hanjin’s Paramus office.
   Earlier this summer Hapag-Lloyd reorganized its U.S. offices, halving employment at its location in Piscataway, N.J., to about 130-140. The company’s corporate headquarters remains in Piscataway, but other jobs were transferred to locations such as Atlanta and Chicago. Hapag-Lloyd also has an office in Houston and its Latin America regional headquarters in Tampa.
   Wallenius Wilhelmsen in Woodcliff Lake, N.J., is also planning to reduce staff over the next year.
   Jonathan Spampinato, a spokesman for the roll-on/roll-off carrier, said earlier in the year the company completed a global review of administrative costs and practices, and subsequently began a cost reduction program.
   “The review was motivated by increasing cost pressures, caused particularly by higher building costs for new vessels, escalating fuel costs and shortages of terminal space,” he said. “As a result, here in North America, 56 employees will be terminated by June 30, 2009.
   “Some of these functions will be eliminated, and others will be relocated to lower-cost areas so we can continue to provide excellent service to our customers in the face of mounting cost pressures,” he said.