Up to 190 jobs are threatened at steel producer company ArcelorMittal in Belgium, as a result of the management's plans to move part of the support services to India.
The Belgian figures were announced at the European Works Council, according to the Christian CSC-ACV Metea union representing metal and textile workers.
"This is a unilateral decision that was taken based on purely financial logic," said union representative David Camerini. He added that almost 2,000 jobs are expected to disappear across Europe.
Last month, there was talk of 140 service jobs being at risk at ArcelorMittal in Belgium, a figure that the management did not want to confirm at the time. Now, it seems that the figure is higher than initially thought.
Relocating to India
It concerns office jobs, which mainly involve employees of the site in Ghent. Certain support activities, such as HR, finance, IT and purchasing, are said to be relocated to the so-called "business service hubs" in India. Tasks that require physical presence or local knowledge, or are legally bound to the location, will remain in Belgium.
Although the project is separate from the production activities, there has also been unrest about this for some time.
Last month, the Ghent management confirmed that routine tasks, recurring tasks, and tasks with clear rules and activities where economies of scale can lead to greater efficiency. They added that their ambition was "to safeguard the employment of the employees involved."
The management said it saw sufficient opportunities through internal mobility, insourcing (internal employees taking over external tasks) and natural turnover (including retirement).
ArcelorMittal production plant in Desteldonk, Ghent. Credit: Belga/James Arthur Gekiere
In Belgium, ArcelorMittal has a large factory in Ghent, where in addition to more than 3,000 steel workers, around 2,000 employees work. The company has support services in Belgium that deal with industrial automation, quality control, customer relations and IT.
In February, it was already announced that the steel group was working on a delocalisation of certain services. The operation fits in with a cost-saving policy, since ArcelorMittal's European steel factories are struggling heavily with competition from cheaper imports, especially from Asia.
The greatest potential impact is expected in the IT department (35-45 full-time equivalents), followed by finance (20-30 FTEs), HR (15-25) and commercial organisation (10-20).
No room for investments
In April, a major round of redundancies was also announced at ArcelorMittal in France. 600 jobs will disappear in seven Northern factories, but that decision is separate from the efficiency exercise that the multinational steel giant is making around its European services.
In addition to Ghent, ArcelorMittal also has smaller production sites in Liège, Geel and Genk in Belgium.
In 2021, the company announced an ambitious greening of the Ghent factory, but this has not yet been realised. According to the parent company, the European market currently does not allow for major investments due to the pressure from cheap imports.
