Tata Steel Europe to cut 2,500 jobs

Steel major, Tata Steel is cutting down 25 percent of its work force, in Europe to save USD 930 Mn in costs. 

According to a report, Tata Steel Netherland would contribute a large part of this amount or  upto 170 million in cost savings.

The job cuts will be across Tata Steel’s Europe plants in the Netherlands, France, England and Belgium.

It was earlier reported that the Tata group had indicated that it would invest more in its India operations and expand capacity in Odisha’s Kalinganagar plant instead of Europe. According to a statement by a top official of Tata Group, “The idea is to shrink the European business of Tata Steel and grow the Indian business so that in the overall pie, the contribution of European business is less.” 

Earlier this May, Tata Steel planned to merge its European operations with ThyssenKrupp. However, the aspiration bogged down following objections from the anti-trust authorities of the European Commission.

The debt on European operation books is about 2.2 billion. In one of India Inc’s biggest takeovers overseas in 2007, Tata Steel took over Corus Group Plc for $13 billion. The takeover failed to pay dividend to Tata Steel back home as the Lehman crisis in 2008 hit global markets. Since the takeover, Tata Steel shut plants in the UK and in 2018, decided to sell off all its UK plants but retained one plant in Port Talbot. It expects the UK plant to turn around this year.