Steel giant Corus axing 2,000 jobs

Britain’s largest Steelmaker Corus is believed to be axing 2,000 jobs. However, the company is to make a formal statement later today.

Reports say that around 500 jobs will go at its Scunthorpe plant, while a further 400 are expected to be lost at its Teesside plant and 800 jobs are at risk at Rotherham.

Unions have described the job losses as “devastating” and come just 24 hours after Lloyds Banking Group confirmed it was shedding 240 offshore banking jobs.

Furthermore, Legal & General (L&G) also confirmed yesterday it would axe 200 positions from its protection and annuities business in Hove, Cardiff and Kingswood in Surrey.

Meanwhile, Corus, which is Europe’s second-largest steelmaker and the ninth largest in the world, is understood to be keeping sites open.

The steelmaker was created over a decade ago from the merger of British Steel and Dutch firm Hoogovens.

Corus announced 3,500 job losses (with 2,000 in the UK) back in January and has been hit by a slump in demand. It produces 20 million tonnes of crude steel every year and has annual revenues of around £12 billion.

Community union general secretary Michael Leahy said: “This is bad news on top of bad news - this brings the Corus job cuts for the year to around 4,500 and that’s without the threat to thousands of workers on Teesside and potentially more job cuts in the pipeline for Corus Strip UK. We have real concerns for the integrity of the British steel industry - we fear its further erosion could fundamentally undermine UK manufacturing.”

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