Rok has cut 200 workers from its contracting business, chief executive Garvis Snook confirmed this week.

The job cuts come as the firm plans to reduce its turnover in contracting from £500m to £300m annually. They are in addition to almost 30 jobs axed in August as a result of Rok’s decision to end its commercial development venture.

It had been reported previously that the firm was likely to relocate the workers to different parts of the business. However, Snook told Building: “There are some people who don’t want to do anything other than contracting, and that’s their choice.”

The news follows rumours of large-scale redundancies and office closures. Snook said contracting work in the firm’s Liverpool office had been stopped, with work from other offices, including Manchester, severely reduced. The firm’s estimating business has also been moved from Manchester, to be centralised in York.

However, Snook denied that any of Rok’s 63 offices would close, with other lines of business expanding rapidly. He said the firm would hire far more people over the next 12 months than it had made redundant as it grows its social housing and maintenance businesses to fill the £200m contracting shortfall.

Snook said the firm was hiring 50-80 people a month as part of this venture, which he claimed would provide a more reliable source of work, at higher profit margins, than contracting.

Rok’s commercial development business was closed after revenues fell 58% to record a £2.7m loss in 2008.

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