Carnival UK has confirmed that close to a third of shoreside jobs have been made redundant, while a “significant proportion” of staff will take a period of sabbatical.

The company had previously announced plans to cut jobs in the wake of the pandemic and difficulties caused by the suspension of sailings.

In a statement, P&O Cruises president Paul Ludlow said: “The Covid-19 pandemic has not only affected the holidays of our guests but it has also impacted every part of our business; our future deployment; the guest experience; our supply chain and our people on ship and on shore.

“Due to this impact we have had to take some really tough decisions to ensure that we can sustain and protect our business for the future. Following a period of collective consultation nearly a third of our shore-based staff will very sadly be leaving our business on 30 June and another significant proportion will take a period of sabbatical.

“We are devastated to have to take this action which has affected so many talented and dedicated colleagues. We appreciate it is a very difficult and unsettling time for everyone, but we have followed a clear and fair consultation process and considered all individual suggestions for new ways of working.

“Our commitment to the travel trade remains as strong as ever. The reduction in sales team was, very sadly, a forced necessity due to social distancing and the limitations of shop and office visits.

“We remain committed to developing new ways of working to best support our agent partners encouraging agent feedback and including training and regular communication through our 15,000-strong agent Shine programme.

“We would like to take this opportunity to reaffirm our sincere thanks to all our agent partners for their mutual work supporting our guests during our pause in operations and we look forward to working together as we develop our re-start plan.”