Thursday, January 15, 2009

Voestalpine Cuts Working Hours for 4000 Staff

Austrian steelmaker, Voestalpine, has announced that in order to avoid layoffs ten percent of its 42,000 staff will have their working hours reduced in attempt to deal with the current downturn.

The cut will affect 1500 employees at the company's Automotive Division sites in Germany, the Netherlands and Austria sites of the Automotive Division and 2500 staff at the company's Steel Division a quarter of its staff.

The employees concerned in steel production will work approximately 15 percent less hours for the coming 3 months while payments are reduced by a maximum of 10 percentat.

CEO Wolfgang Eder said: “The current economic situation can only be handled with radical measures. Everyone of us will have to make sacrifices in order to avoid layoffs in large scale, which remains our primary goal.”

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