Construction services group Keller has made 80 redundancies in its UK businesses since June.
Keller Foundations and Keller Makers have cut their workforce to about 800 people after it emerged that the group would not hit its 20% year-on-year growth target.

Chief executive Tom Dobson said heavy piling work had been particularly hard hit and that the group had withdrawn from that market.

Dobson said: "There have been some slight reductions in staff, mostly in the past month. I think we're back on track."

Keller has previously stated that the reasons that it has failed to hit its growth target were delays in jobs and the impact of a weak dollar.

Despite the problems, Keller announced a turnover of £278.8m for the first six months of 2002, up 11% on the same period last year. Pre-tax profit rose 7% to £12.8m.

There have been some reductions in staff … We’re back on track

Tom Dobson, chief executive

Dobson confirmed that the group was still not in a position to hit its 20% growth target, but added that the company would perform strongly at its year-end results.

He said: "Overall, our strong business fundamentals and an order book representing four months' sales give us confidence that we shall report a further year of growth."

Dobson added that the company might make some bolt-on acquisitions of less than £10m over the next six to 12 months.