UK's Tata confirms 1200 job cuts
UK’s Tala Steel has announced 12,00 job cuts blaming the layoffs in northern England and Scotland on a flood of cheap imports, particularly from China along with high electricity costs and the strong pound.
Though rumor of the layoffs has been spreading over the past few days, the timing of the announcement seems to be designed to wing the maximum attention. The announcement has been made on the first day of Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to London. The visit is designed to usher in a “golden era” of relations between the two countries.
"The U.K. steel industry is struggling for survival in the face of extremely challenging market conditions," Chief Executive of Tata's European operations, Karl Koehler said in a statement.
He went on saying, "this industry has a crucial role to play in rebalancing the U.K. economy, but we need a fairer system to encourage growth."
The British government is now under pressure to raise the issue of China selling steel at a loss on world markets. Tata's decision comes only weeks after Sahaviriya Steel Industries announced the closure of its plant in Redcar, costing 2,200 jobs. Another firm, Caparo Industries, went into partial administration on Monday, threatening hundreds more jobs.
Earlier, Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said China's steel exports are "certainly one of the things we'll be talking about.
The oversupply of steel on the world market has led to lower prices, and the European Union is trying to ensure that Chinese steel is fairly priced by imposing anti-dumping duties, Hammond said.
Tata, whose European operations include plants in the U.K., the Netherlands, Germany, France and Belgium, said that in the past two years, imports of steel plate from China have quadrupled.
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