Tata Steel is planning to cut 3,000 jobs across its European operations as the company wrestles with “unprecedented” market conditions.
About two-thirds of the job cuts will fall on office-based workers, the company said in a statement late on Monday.
Henrik Adam, chief executive of Tata Steel Europe, said the plans will help the company “become self-sustaining and cash positive in the face of unprecedented severe market conditions.”
Like other European producers, Tata’s profits have been squeezed by higher raw material costs and a fall in steel prices, exacerbated by imports of cheap steel. Orders from customers in key areas such as carmaking have been faltering amid a wider slowdown in manufacturing as the US-China trade war rumbles on.
Mr Adam told the FT last week that the company would aim to make employment cost savings of £150m but there would be no plant closures.
“I strongly believe in a togetherness of Tata Steel in Europe . . . We are stronger together. Or, vice versa, weaker alone,” he said.
The announcement of job cuts is a fresh blow for workers at Tata’s plant in Port Talbot, Wales, who have endured years of uncertainty at the UK’s largest steelworks which employs around 4,000 people.
The announcement comes after a merger with Germany’s Thyssenkrupp was blocked earlier this year. The companies had hoped a deal would lead to cost savings.
