Type
Internal restructuring
Country
Germany
Region
Nordrhein-Westfalen;
Location of affected unit(s)
Bochum, Düsseldorf-Benrath, Krefeld
Sector
Manufacturing
Manufacture Of Basic Metal And Fabricated Metal Products
Manufacture Of Basic Metals
24.52 - Casting of steel

1,000 jobs
Number of planned job losses
Job loss
Announcement Date
25 April 2013
Employment effect (start)
25 April 2013
Foreseen end date
31 December 2017

Description

Finland-based stainless steel company Outokumpu will cut up to 1,370 instead of previously announced 570 jobs in Germany by the end of the year. This is part of a savings programme. 

In April, Outokumpu once before announced to intensify its cost efficiency programme. As a result, the company announced to cut 2,500 jobs worldwide instead of 2,000 jobs in Europe, which had been announced in January (see here). These job cuts shall be implemented from 2013 to 2017. By the end of the year, Outokumpu will cut 770 jobs worldwide, about two thirds of them in Germany. The majority of the job cuts refers to former ThyssenKrupp sites, that Outokumpu has acquired recently (see here). Worldwide, Outokumpu employs 11,800 people.

UPDATE 2013-10-01: In October 2013, Outokumpu announced that in a second savings programme job cuts will rise by 1,000 worldwide, so that total staff reductions sum up to 3,500. 800 of the recently announced job cuts refer to Germany, where a total of about 1,300 jobs will be axed. The site in Bochum (North Rhine-Westphalia) will be shut down in 2014 instead of 2016; this will result in 450 redundancies. The Düsseldorf-Benrath (North Rhine-Westphalia) site will be closed by the end of 2015 and production will be relocated to Krefeld (North Rhine-Westphalia), which means a loss of 480 jobs of whom a a fraction will be employed in Krefeld.

UPDATE 2014-03-30: After the conclusion of negotiations with the German Metalworkers’ Union, the shut down of the site in Bochum was postponed. As the FAZ reported, Outokumpu will reassess the situation of the Bochum site in February 2015 and job cuts would at the earliest be realised six months later. The Düsseldorf-Benrath site will still be closed by the end of 2015 and production will be relocated to Krefeld. The company plans to invest 108 million euros in the Krefeld site between 2014 and 2016. It is still foreseen that Outukumpu will shed 1,000 jobs in Germany by the end of 2017.


Sources

  • 26 April 2013: Handelsblatt
  • 25 April 2013: Outokumpu (press release)
  • 30 March 2014: Outokumpu (press release)
  • 1 April 2014: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

Citation

Eurofound (2013), Outokumpu, Internal restructuring in Germany, factsheet number 75473, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/75473.