Rumors of layoffs at Tata Steel’s Netherlands branch started making the rounds after they released a press release about scrapping 3000 jobs in Europe. According to CEO Henrik Adam of Tata Steel Europe, IJmuiden has not been performing very well. Generally, the European car industry has been going through some tough changes. Along with high energy costs and competition, things are not looking good.
Right now, there are around 11,000 people working for Tata Steel in the Netherlands. 9,000 of them are in working in IJmuiden. Although Frits van Wieringen (Central Works Council) thinks it will be between 1500 to 1600 jobs, Tata has not confirmed how many jobs it will be, reports RTL Nieuws.
"I work hard to guarantee our employees a happy future" – says Henrik Adam, CEO of @tatasteeleurope while speaking to Dutch business daily Het Financieele Dagblad about his plans to put the company on a sound financial footing for the long-term. https://t.co/h2fQIi6ygi
— Tata Steel in Europe (@TataSteelEurope) November 18, 2019
Employees being kept in the dark
As it is not yet known just how many people are going to losing their jobs in the Netherlands, there is a lot of uncertainty about what is going to happen. According to NOS, “Tata expects that office functions in particular will be scrapped: around two-thirds of the total.” However Peter Böeseken from the trade union CNV says, “Tata Steel Europe says the redundancies will fall at the offices. But at which offices, and where at the offices? We don’t know that yet.”
Trade union FNV is also very let down by how Tata is handling this as they have not made it clear how exactly these cuts will be made. They said that they heard Tata’s austerity plan will be released by April 1. However, until then, the employees might be kept in the dark.
Is this really surprising?
As the CEO of the European division mentioned, it seemed to be inevitable that jobs in the company might be scarce. Last month, a memo saying that Tata wants to cut down on costs worth 830 million euros in Europe leaked. It was already estimated back then that 1000 employees might be out of a job because of this.
We are taking steps to build a stronger and more sustainable business in Europe. For more details of our proposed transformation programme click here: https://t.co/kBDpRFenNl
— Tata Steel in Europe (@TataSteelEurope) November 18, 2019
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Feature Image: Alf van Beem [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons