#French #company #Vallourec #announces #elimination #jobs #worldwide
Vallourec will cut around 2,950 jobs worldwide, including 320 in France, the group announced in a press release on Wednesday, May 18. Closure of your German sites will lead to deletion “about 2,400 positions”. Added to this is a reduction “about 550 positions” in so-called support functions.
In mid-November, the seamless tube manufacturing company, which was coming out of a long financial restructuring process, announced the sale of its German activities and the cessation of manufacturing tubes for industrial use in Europe. It planned to transfer part of its activities to Brazil.
Vallourec specified on Wednesday that “credible buyer has not been identified” for German activities and thus launches its closure. “The closure of the German assets leads to a further rationalization of other European assets in charge of finishing rolled tubes in Germany”Vallourec adds. This will result in closing the “heat treatment line” of the French plant in Saint-Saulve (North).
Departures from the end of 2022
Of the 550 jobs lost in the rest of the world, “you have 70 in Scotland, by stopping filleting activity, volumes of which would be repatriated to the Aulnoye-Aymeries (North) site, and 320 in France, including 65 at head office” de Meudon (Hauts-de-Seine), explained the group’s CEO, Philippe Guillemot, during a conference call.
About 250 jobs will be eliminated in northern France, including just under a hundred at the Saint-Saulve site, around a hundred jobs at the Aulnoye-Aymeries site “and the balance of the shared services center that we have in Valenciennes”Mr. Guillemot said.
As for the schedule, “We are in discussions that take the time they should take in the countries in which we operate”replied the CEO. It foresees departures from the end of 2022 and that they will be distributed “throughout 2023, in particular in Germany”since this country will continue to produce as long as the volumes made in Germany are not transferred to Brazil.
“We are fatalists, we suspected it (…). This is the closure of the site pure and simple.Michaël Tison, CFDT delegate from the Saint-Saulve site, reacted to the press. Vallourec had public money to make investments in Brazil or China, they are going to build factories there and France is the winner. »
“The group’s continued policy of abandoning its industrial activities in France is not acceptable” reacted on twitter the president of the Hauts-de-France region, Xavier Bertrand (Les Républicains), asking the State to“explain your position as majority shareholder through Bpifrance”, public investment bank. He specified that he had obtained from the general director of Vallourec “an emergency meeting” Friday with labor representatives, local elected officials and management.