British Steel to Axe 400 Jobs

British Steel has said that it will axe 400 managerial, professional and administrative roles at its operations throughout the UK, Ireland, France and the Netherlands as part of the company’s ongoing transformation process.

Other steps include continuing efforts to improve manufacturing performance and increasing turnover through strong sales, the company said on Friday (14).

Roland Junck, British Steel’s Executive Chairman said, “we have already committed £120 million to capital expenditure projects and are pressing ahead with the £50 million upgrade to our Scunthorpe Rod Mill, which we announced in July. However, the pace of change we need in this challenging industry requires further and continued investment along with more agile and efficient operations.”

“To help us achieve this, we have to make difficult decisions and our plans, unfortunately, include the proposed reduction of 400 roles across our global workforce,” he added.

Since its launch in 2016, British Steel which employs more than 5,000 people across the globe has turned a business losing tens of millions of pounds a year into one making profit.

Under previous ownership in the fiscal year 2016, the business made a loss of £79 mn. In British Steel’s first year- financial year 2017, it secured a profit of £47m – a £126m turnaround.

This summer the firm announced an EBITDA of £68m proforma for the fiscal year 2018 (excluding the £47m one-off cost of a blast furnace chill for which the company is pursuing an insurance claim). It reported a profit of £21m for the first quarter of the current fiscal.