Pertamina to cut number of workers by 35 percent

State oil and gas firm Pertamina has planned to cut by 35 percent the number of its workers starting from next year, company president director Baihaki Hakim said on Tuesday as reported by Koran Tempo daily.

Pertamina currently has a total of 25,617 employees, Baihaki said in a news conference on its five-year programs.

Baihaki said the number of Pertamina?s workers would not be done through layoffs, but through a retirement program. ?There will not be layoff,? he said.

He said the move was meant for enabling Pertamina to compete with other oil and gas companies after it becomes a limited liability company.

Pertamina is expected to start operating as a limited liability company in 2003.

The current oil and gas law, which became effective late last year, dismantled Pertamina?s decades long monopoly in the country?s upstream and down stream oil and gas sectors, thus making it an ordinary limited liability company. (*)