Blog Post

Risk of Redundancy for 100 Opus Energy Staff due to Covid-19 Pandemic fallout

Richard Simmonds • May 21, 2021

100 employees at Opus Energy’s Cardiff branch are at risk of redundancy as the company struggles to manage the fallout created by the Covid-19 pandemic.

What’s Happened

According to Drax, the renewable energy company that owns Opus Energy, the impacts of the pandemic have seen finances impacted to the sum of around £60 million.

As a result of these losses and the difficulties created by the three government imposed national lockdowns Opus Energy is to scale down its operations. The Cardiff branch only opened in 2016 and its closure could see up to 100 employees face redundancy.

A spokesperson for Drax said that all of the employees at risk will be entered into a 45 day consultation period and no decisions will be made until after that time frame is up.

Also read: Ofgem not expected to raise Covid-19 allowance for Energy Suppliers

Impacted market

The energy supply market has been hit hard by the pandemic with many smaller suppliers struggling as an increased number of business and domestic customers slid into debt and were unable to pay their energy bills.

The pandemic also incurred plenty of expenses as suppliers had to adapt to the way they do things such as supporting their staff’s ability to work from home and implement Covid restrictions and safety measures.

Drax said that the virus’ impact on the SME market meant that it had to shift how it operates and suggested that more changes and potential job losses could be in the offing.

“The Covid-19 pandemic has created significant issues for some of the businesses we supply energy to – particularly in the SME market. Following a strategic review, we have made a decision to make some changes to help drive down costs in the SME part of our business, this includes the proposal to no longer have an office located in Cardiff and we are consulting with 93 employees contractually based there whose roles are at risk of redundancy,” said the Drax spokesman.

The Drax group employs 3,400 people in the UK and North America.

Also read: Covid-19 has changed the relationship between Energy Suppliers and their customers forever

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