Arcelor Mittal, the world's largest steelmaker is preparing plans for thousands of job cuts in Europe due to the continuing economic turbulence in world's second-richest continent. The Luxembourg-based steelmakers yesterday said that it is planning to "optimise its support services" at its European flat carbon steel division, which unions have said world lead to thousands job losses.At the company's European work's council meeting held this week in Luxembourg, ArcelorMittal's Flat Carbon Europe division gave a presentation on guiding objectives on future organisation in regards to support services, which includes administration, human resources, technology and purchasing, according to report from AFP news agency. "To face economic difficulties in Europe, the Flat Carbon Europe division considers it vital to improve and insure competitively of its activity at all levels," ArcelorMittal said in a written statement to AFP. Edouard Martin, of the French CFDT union told the news agency that the entire exercise is a "hidden layoff plan" which will lead to thousands of job cuts in Europe. The CFE-CGC union of France envisages between 3,000 and 5,000 jobs could be cut from the 10,000 support jobs mainly in Belgium, France, Germany, Spain, Poland, and Romania. Lakshmi Mittal, chairman and CEO of ArcelorMittal had last week told the Financial Timesthat the ''sustained collapse in European [steel] demand has created a severe imbalance with potential supply (of the metal)'' and that the overall problems for the world economy remained ''very concerning.'' He also ruled out further site closures in Europe as the global steel industry currently has an overcapacity due to the slowdown in demand and consumption in China. Brussels-based World Steel Association had last month in its monthly report said that the European Union remained slow as production fell 5.5 per cent to 15.3Mt against 16.1Mt in May 2011. Germany produced 3.7Mt of crude steel, a decrease of 9.7 per cent over May last year. Italy's crude steel production for May 2012 was 2.6 Mt, down by 3.3 per cent. France produced 1.5 Mt of crude steel, up by 1.3 per cent compared to May 2011. Spain's crude steel production for May 2012 was 1.3 Mt, a massive 13.9 per cent lower than May 2011. While Lakshmi Mittal had earlier forecaste global steel consumption to grow by 4 per cent in 2012 and 2013, the World Steel Association earlier this year projected that steel consumption in Europe was expected to shrink by 1.2 per cent this year to 150.9 million tonnes due to the sovereign debt crisis. ArcelorMittal produced 92,629,000 tonnes of steel last year or 6 per cent of the global steel output, 37 per cent of it was produced in Western Europe, while 11 per cent was in Central and Eastern Europe. The company has already temporarily shut several plants in Europe since last year and idled many more, citing structural over-capacity in Northern Europe amid a difficult European market. Source: Domain-B
