IPTN won't sack employees: Habibie

JAKARTA (JP): President of state-owned aircraft manufacturer PT Industri Pesawat Terbang Nusantara (IPTN) B.J. Habibie has assured that no employees will lose their jobs in the company's restructuring process.

"We will not dismiss any of our employees. The restructuring aims at improving our staff's performance and products' competitiveness in the future," Habibie said in Bandung over the weekend.

Habibie explained the planned restructuring to some 1,500 senior IPTN employees. The meeting was closed to journalists, while security officers were seen staying on guard outside the company's complex, Antara reported.

Giri Suseno, a top executive of the Strategic Industries Supervisory Agency, said earlier this year that IPTN suffered a loss of Rp 185.55 billion (US$77.2 million) in 1995.

IPTN, established in 1976, now employs 16,565 staff: 2,220 hold bachelor's degrees in engineering and 50 are doctoral graduates. About 1,000 of them are due to return from overseas studies.

The company, together with a management consultant from the U.S., A.T. Kearney, is now working on the company's structural reorganization, which is expected to bring the company into its core business: designing and producing airplanes.

IPTN's general manager, Hari Laksono, said last week the company's number of directorates would be cut from five to three.

"The reorganization of the five directorates will result in the transfer of about 4,000 employees to IPTN subsidiaries," he said.

At present, IPTN has several subsidiaries, including PT IPTN North America, an aircraft assembler in Alabama, U.S.; PT Batam Aircraft Maintenance in Batam, Riau; PT IPTN Europe ASL and IPTN's marketing arm in Lemwerder, Germany.

The company also has a 51 percent stake in PT Nusantara System International, a software and system company, a 10 percent stake in PT General Electric Indonesia and 40 percent in PT General Electric Nusantara Turbine Services. (imn)