United States | A review of company procedures has led to the cutting of 209 jobs at US scrap metal processor OmniSource. Since some work is now being done more efficiently and some steps have been eliminated, 'it is not our intention to replace these positions after demand for scrap metal rebounds', the company's President and Chief Operating Officer Mark Millett has told a local newspaper.
OmniSource employed some 2800 people prior to the job cuts. Mr Millett believes the workforce is now the right size to handle full-capacity operations at OmniSource but he does not rule out further cuts if the recession continues and worsens.
This is the first efficiency review since Fort Wayne-based Steel Dynamics Inc. (SDI) paid the Rifkin family US$ 1 billion for OmniSource in 2007. Richard Teets, SDI's President of Steel Operations, says the steel-producing side of the business is already 'right-sized'; a hiring freeze has been imposed but no jobs have been cut, he adds, although no guarantees are being given for the future. 'We have a responsibility to all stakeholders to do the right thing,' says Mr Teets. 'We never say never.'
Keith Busse, SDI's Chairman and CEO, said recently that OmniSource probably employed more people than it needed. 'We've got an organisation there that's probably not sized right,' he ventured. Recently, SDI reported a first-quarter loss of US$ 88 million on net sales of US$ 815 million; for the same three months of 2008, the steelmaker posted earnings of US$ 143 million on net sales of US$ 1.9 billion.
Acknowledgement
www.recyclinginternational.com
