Tata Steel is considering slashing about 1200 jobs in Europe in a bid to increase profits. The steel manufacturing company, which has about 20,000 employees in Europe, is endeavouring to improve its financial situation and business performance. Last year, the Company had announced 3,000 job cuts across Europe in November, and had also clarified that it has no intention to replace the retired staff or those who left. At that time, it was revealed that about two-thirds of the cuts were to be white-collar roles.
However, Tata Steel has been trying to come up with ways to reduce job losses since then. It has been discussing a transformation programme and consulting its European works council to ensure that minimum number of employees are affected. At the same time, it is also very seriously looking at ways to surge ahead at great speed and make the business profitable and sustainable in the future.
Under the transformation programme, the Company had laid off 800 employees in Europe, in February 2020.
The Company had incurred a net loss of Rs 1,228 crore, and its European operations had taken a beating due to a fall in demand in the third quarter, where EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation) loss per ton was more than what was estimated.
As part of the transformation plan, Tata Steel Europe will be focussing on increasing sales of higher-value steels by bettering the product mix and customer focus. It will also be optimising production processes to improve efficiency, by applying big data and advanced analytics. Lastly, it will be attempting to reduce procurement costs by smarter sourcing and strengthening cooperation with companies within the Tata Steel Group.
