ArcelorMittal South Africa (AMSA), the South African subsidiary of global steel giant Lakshmi Mittal, is planning to shed 1,000 jobs as a part of its cost-cutting activities as it reports a loss of about $2.8 Mn for the year ending in December 2019. 

About six months ago, AMSA had announced major restructuring of its plants. The closure of  loss-making Saldanha Works was announced in November 2019. The reasons behind this closure ranged from a global downturn in the steel market, a reduction in the plant’s export edge due to high costs of electricity, rail transport, and price regulation. 

AMSA said that the focus for the company is to concentrate on “cash preservation” as a means to preserve the company for the long-term. The year 2019 had been filled with challenges in AMSA. 

“A large-scale employee reorganization has been largely finalised and resulted in a reduction of over a thousand own employees. A significant repricing and rescoping of sub-contractor services will be completed by the end of the first quarter of 2020,” according to the company statement. 

Mittal had helped this born out of the former state-owned steel manufacturer Iscor in 1989 to turn around its ailing fortunes.