Thousand face axe in WS Atkins jobs U-turn

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Atkins today said it is reversing a recruitment surge, in which it took on 1000 people last spring and summer. The decision to reduce the payroll to 18,000 and put staff on a wages freeze comes just months after Labour-supporting chief executive Keith Clarke said Gordon Brown's plans to save the economy should mean a boom for Atkins.

Clarke told the Evening Standard in November: "If the Government fulfils economic plans, we will find ourselves in a very robust market."

The company said today: "We have been affected by the uncertainty in a number of markets, principally in our Middle East and UK building design businesses."

Atkins has been a big beneficiary of the construction boom in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and other oil-rich Persian Gulf states, responsible for designing landmarks such as the Dubai's Burj Al Arab hotel.

But with the sheikhs reeling from the global financial crisis, more than 200 of the jobs Atkins is cutting are in the Middle East, and many will be expat Brits.

The company refused to give details of the UK cuts, but many are expected to be in its building design businesses, which had been "severely impacted" by the construction-market downturn and the deferring of projects by the Government's Learning and Skills Council.