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Balfour Beatty has put all 12,000 staff across its UK construction services division on notice that their jobs are at risk as part of a major restructuring exercise.

A Balfour Beatty spokeswoman said all staff in the firm鈥檚 construction services division had been notified that their jobs are at risk, which she said comprised around 12,000 employees.

The firm鈥檚 spokeswoman said she could not say how many jobs it expected to go as part of the restructure, but added: 鈥淲e do not currently envisage that operational employees involved in project delivery will be affected.鈥�

The contractor鈥檚 construction services arm includes contractor Mansell, Balfour Beatty Civil Engineering, Balfour Beatty Engineering Services and Balfour Beatty Construction.

Balfour Beatty鈥檚 UK construction services division website states it has a turnover of 拢3.5bn.

The construction services arm employs around 18,000 people globally and turned over 拢7bn globally in 2011 but saw profit margin fall to 2.4% from 3% the previous year, with the firm expecting construction margins to fall further in 2012 and bottoming out at 2%.

Its order book was also down 8% at 拢8.5bn.

In a statement the firm said: 鈥淭o align the resources of Balfour Beatty鈥檚 Construction Services UK business to current and future market conditions, a consultation period has commenced with its employees. 

鈥淭he dialogue is with potentially affected employees, therefore, it would be inappropriate to comment further during this period.鈥�

Earlier this month a restructure at the firm was possible.

He said: 鈥淲e鈥檙e inevitably looking at how we can drive more efficiencies. It鈥檚 hugely understandable that people are saying there鈥檚 a restructure going on. Well yeah, you know, it鈥檚 something we are always looking at.鈥�

The move follows the firm鈥檚 statement in its annual results that it was seeking to find annual efficiency savings of 拢50m across the group by 2015.