720 jobs to be cut at Rotherham’s Tata Steel plant

Tata Steel has confirmed plans to cut 720 jobs in its UK operations, due to rising electricity costs and a strong pound.

Most of the positions to be made redundant will go from Tata Steel’s plant in Rotherham, South Yorkshire.

The steel bar-making firm said the business was underperforming and cannot compete with its European competitors. This is mainly due to the high costs of electricity, which meant producing the metal in the UK was uneconomical.

Karl Koehler, chief executive of Tata Steel’s European operations, said, via BBC: “Energy is one of our largest costs at our speciality and bar business and we are disadvantaged by the UK’s cripplingly high electricity costs.”

“And while the UK government announced helpful measures to reduce the impact of its high energy taxes a few years ago, these measures still haven’t been introduced.

“We want to play our role in reinvigorating the UK’s manufacturing industry, but increasing imports and high energy costs have further undermined the competitiveness of foundations industries.”

After the 720 jobs are cut, Tata will still employ about 1,500 people in South Yorkshire. The company has also pledged to work with trade unions and employees to redeploy as many people as possible.

Tata is now going to focus its UK steel business on high-value sectors, such as aerospace.

Although the government has introduced some measures to help the industry, unions not believe they have done enough.

Gareth Stace, director of UK Steel, said: “The sector is facing a potent cocktail of high energy costs, a strong pound and overcapacity in competitor countries.

“While factors such as currency are out of our control, we simply cannot afford to keep overloading our companies with energy costs which in some cases are almost double those faced elsewhere, otherwise job losses are the result we will see.”