ArcelorMittal Moves Quickly To Reduce About 9,000 Employees As Steel Demand Drops

Production Sites Of ArcelorMittal

New York, NY - ArcelorMittal (NYSE: MT) is today meeting with its European Works Council to present voluntary separation programs to be launched across the group.

This is to help achieve the company’s stated aim of reducing SG&A (Selling, General and Administrative) expenditure by $1 billion in response to the current economic situation.

The focus is primarily on non-production employees, in particular those in SG&A functions across the globe. These programs may involve up to 9,000 employees, approximately 3% of the total global work force. ArcelorMittal is the world's leading steel company, with over 326,000 employees in more than 60 countries.

The processes will be run in close collaboration with stakeholders and in accordance with the appropriate social considerations of the respective countries involved.

“This has been a very difficult decision for the company to take as all of our employees are extremely important to us. Sadly however the global economic reality means that it is only sensible to adopt such measures," Bernard Fontana, executive vice president and member of ArcelorMittal’s management committee with responsibility for human resources, said in a statement.

"Our priority is now to meet with all our stakeholders to explain the reasons for this decision and to reassure them that the process will be carried out in accordance with all social considerations. We are very grateful for the professionalism and dedication of our employees, all of whom have played an important role in building ArcelorMittal."

In 2007, ArcelorMittal had revenues of $105.2 billion and crude steel production of 116 million tonnes, representing around 10 per cent of world steel output.

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