The largest steelmaker in Romania laid off 936 people last year, company officials said, which means the former Sidex has lost 20,000 people since privatization in 2001.
The plant is unable to recover from the difficult steel market and the local production of steel fell from 4 million tons in its heyday to 1.7 million tons at the moment.
However, the investments made by the plant in the production facilities in Galati are unable to provide for carmaker Automobile Dacia’s car body sheet metal needs, so it has to resort to imports.
Most of the restructuring of the steel plant has been done by voluntary layoff schemes, giving employees that chose to leave on their own severance pay and several wages’ worth depending on how long they had worked for the company.
Crisis made its worst impact on ArcelorMittal Galati’s business in 2009, when the company posted EUR850 million revenue, a 55% decline on 2008 and record high loss of EUR355 million, the highest ever posted by a company in Romania.
ArcelorMittal Galati representatives did not return ZF’s calls for comment on the reasons and circumstances that led to the decline in the number of employees last year by press time.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)