Corus cuts 2500 steel jobs in dark day for industry
Steel giant Corus has today revealed plans to cut 2500 jobs from its UK operations and over 1000 jobs from its operations in Holland. While many people believe this was on the cards sometime ago, with the company looking at closing various steel plants around the world, the size of the redundancies has come as something of a surprise. However, when you consider that the worldwide economy has taken a battering over the last few months and construction is at its lowest level for some time, it was inevitable that at some stage the steel industry would suffer.
While the unions are currently looking for discussions with the company's management this would appear to the only way forward as the steel giant needs to cut costs dramatically. As well as being hit by the downturn in the construction industry the sector has also been severely impacted by the automotive industry and the distinct lack of demand for new cars.
While it is hoped that many of the redundancies will be on a voluntary basis the company is unable to rule out compulsory redundancies at this point in time. The directors of Corus are hopeful that this move will substantially cut costs and put the company back on a more sound financial footing.
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