Shell axes another 1,000 jobs

Oil giant Royal Dutch Shell announced a further 1,000 job cuts today as the Anglo-Dutch firm admitted it had been slow to respond to the global slump.

The group, which has 100,000 staff worldwide, cut 5,000 posts last year and had already announced a further 1,000 job losses for this year.

Chief executive Peter Voser said the group would axe another 1,000 posts by the end of 2011 as he presented his strategic update for the firm.

“The company had become too complicated and slower to respond than we’d like. So we are sharpening up,” he said.

Shell gave no details on where the cuts would fall.

Mr Voser said Shell is entering a “new period of growth” as he pledged to turn around years of underperformance and grow production 11% to 3.5 million barrels a day by 2012.