Gurit (Wattwil, Switzerland), a developer and manufacturer of advanced composite materials, announced on Nov. 28 that it has introduced measures to temporarily adjust the workforce in its Canadian structural foam production. The order intake now indicates a delay of some three to four weeks, corresponding to the announced slowdown at several marine customers. In addition, requested shipments of expanded structural foam products have been postponed at one wind energy customer. Gurit (Canada), based in Magog, Quebec, Canada, will thus close the production of unexpanded foam blocks between Christmas and New Year and temporarily lay some 60 people off in this production unit, starting Dec. 6, 2008. Gurit does not expect that the structural foam sales will be permanently adversely affected in 2009.