Amid persistently difficult steel market conditions, BENTELER Steel/Tube has announced up too 600 job cuts.
The reductions are slated to occur through 2022, beginning with the company’s Bottrop plant, which will close in a couple of years. Until then, production will be transferred to Schlob Neuhaus and Paderborn—where 100 new jobs, primarily in production, will be created—but 255 jobs will be lost at Bottrop.
The company’s Dinslaken and Lingen plants will also lose 90 and 10 jobs, respectively.
BENTELER will compensate by focusing efforts on its core markets, it said in a statement, which include administrative changes.
Tobias Braun, chief financial officer of BENTELER Steel/Tube, said the layoffs would be implemented in a socially responsible manner, including voluntary severance programs, flexible working hours and natural fluctuation, as well as partial retirement. He added that discussions with employees’ representatives continue.
Global steel tube prices are declining and the economic outlook for industries spanning oil and gas, industrial, and automotive, remain bleak. Moreover, market demand from China and the US, which BENTELER previously supplied, has been substantially curtailed.