On Tuesday, May 26, Brazilian flat steelmaker Usinas Siderurgicas de Minas Gerais SA (Usiminas) announced that 516 employees at its two mills signed up for its voluntary resignation program which was carried out from May 4 to May 22.
However, the numbers were less than the company required, Usiminas said in a statement. Usiminas added that it aimed to dismiss a further 810 employees, i.e., six percent of its workforce, by May 30 in order to cut staff costs to its "historic" level of ten percent of overall costs.
The steel producer, which has Japanese steelmaker Nippon Steel among its main shareholders, cut 700 jobs from December 2008 to the end of February this year. The new job cuts will raise total layoffs since December to more than 2,000.
The Belo Horizonte-based company stated that the cuts were due to "the severe contraction of demand in Brazil and in the international market" for steel.
The company operates two Brazilian mills; at Cubatão near Santos in Sao Paulo State, which employs 5,500, and at Ipatinga in Minas Gerais State, where there are 9,000 workers.
Currently, three of the company's five blast furnaces are halted, two of which are at Ipatinga with the other at the Cubatão location. The company is at present operating at 50 percent of its annual 8 million mt production capacity.