More house building jobs go in gloom

By Dan Lalor and Mark Potter

LONDON (Reuters) - Builders Bovis Homes and Redrow are cutting 40 percent of their workforces, about 750 jobs in total, to cope with the deepening depression in the housing market.

The downturn has gathered pace in the past few weeks and now feels "an awful lot worse" than the last major correction in the early 1990s, David Ritchie, chief executive of Bovis Homes Group, said on Wednesday.

The comment came just before the Bank of England's interest rate-setting committee began its monthly meeting and after over 3,000 job cuts in the past 10 days at Barratt Developments, Persimmon and Taylor Wimpey.

But there was some better news from Bovis which said it did not as yet expect any big writedowns of the value of its land holdings, although it will cut 400 jobs at a cost of 2 million pounds to save 10 million pounds per year and proposed slashing its dividend to 10 pence from 35 pence.

House builders' share prices have collapsed this year, partly on fears of big writedowns on land bought at the peak of the housing market. The mood worsened on June 30 when indebted Taylor Wimpey announced a 660 million pounds writedown.

Bovis shares, which peaked at 1,220 pence in April 2007, were up 1.2 percent at 321.25 pence at 10:30 a.m.

Redrow, which is cutting 350 job at a cost of 3 million pounds to save 15 million pounds per year, said it would significantly reduce the value of its land holdings and was reviewing its dividend policy.

Its shares, which had underperformed other House builders by 30 percent over the past fortnight, recovered 14 percent to 109.5 pence. The stock peaked at 737 pence in January 2007.