BAM Construct has become the latest contractor to furlough its employees, putting 440 staff on to the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.
Meanwhile, the firm’s senior management team is reducing salaries by 20%.
But BAM, which has around 2,400 employees within its BAM Construct UK business, will pay any furloughed employees in full in April, topping their pay up from the 80% they receive under the government’s scheme, to 100%. However, no decision has yet been take on whether or not this will continue into May.
The company’s board has also chosen to forfeit its annual pay review for 2020.
Chief executive James Wimpenny said: “It is likely that in the coming months we will need to take further steps to protect the long-term sustainability of our business.
“Our priorities are to protect lives and livelihoods so we can further protect the vital jobs that will be so important when the pandemic subsides and the country starts getting back to normal.”
Wimpenny added that the company has 200 employees self-isolating or absent from work because they are showing symptoms of covid-19 and wished them well.
“The UK government is warning us all that the peak of this pandemic has yet to come. Please continue to do all you can to follow the hygiene and social distancing rules, wherever you are,” he said.
BAM is currently building an NHS Nightingale hospital at the Harrogate Convention Centre and is close to being engaged on two others.
