The €1bn in contracts to supply ships for the Brazilian offshore oil industry won by IHC Merwede earlier this summer will create few jobs for Dutch workers, the AD quotes the company as saying on Thursday.

The six specialised vessels will be used to lay pipes for the development of oil fields off the Brazilian coast and, combined, are reported to represent the biggest order in the company’s history.

However, the work will mainly be done by technicians from Poland and Romania, the AD states. ‘Perhaps a quarter’ of the 300 jobs at IHC will be done by Dutch people, head of personnel Bert van der Sluis told the paper.

Van der Sluis does not expect the jobs the project will create at suppliers will be done by the Dutch either, he said. ‘We just don’t have shipbuilding specialists,’ he said. ‘It’s painful considering we have 700,000 unemployed in the Netherlands.’