By Chloe Taylor

Copyright cnbc

Beleaguered wind farm operator Orsted announced Thursday that it intends to reduce its workforce by a quarter toward the end of 2027, in a bid to become more competitive and refocus its efforts on Europe.

The company has faced headwinds this year as President Donald Trump’s administration clamped down on wind power generation in the United States.

Shares were 1% higher in early European trade on Thursday.

“Today, we’ve told our employees that from now and until the end of 2027, we’ll be saying goodbye to many skilled and valued colleagues who’ve contributed greatly to Ørsted,” Rasmus Errboe, the company’s CEO, said in a statement.

Orsted currently employs around 8,000 people worldwide, and said it would reduce its headcount by 500 before the end of this year, culminating in a total of 2,000 reductions.

“This is a necessary consequence of our decision to focus our business and the fact that we’ll be finalising our large construction portfolio in the coming years – which is why we’ll need fewer employees,” Errboe added on Thursday. “At the same time, we want to create a more efficient and flexible organisation and a more competitive Ørsted, ready to bid on new value-accretive offshore wind projects.”