Arcelormittal South Africa [JSE: ACL], the largest steel company in Africa, said on Thursday it had finalised job cuts affecting more than 1 000 employees as it attempted to cut costs.
It announced the "large-scale employee reorganisation" in July 2019.
In a statement released by the multinational steel manufacturing corporation - which has been operating in South Africa since 1989 - on Thursday afternoon, Arcelormittal said it had experienced a challenging year and an "intense focus was placed on cash preservation".
"A large-scale employee reorganisation, as announced on SENS on 10 July 2019, has been largely finalised and resulted in a reduction of over a thousand own employees. Additionally, a significant repricing and rescoping of sub-contractor services will be completed by the end of the first quarter of 2020," it said.
The restructuring is in line with the company’s long-term sustainability programme, it said. The earliest plan on the agenda was the closing down of Saldanha Works, an export-focused plant in Cape Town. The process is expected to be completed by the end of the first quarter of 2020.
Shareholders were further cautioned to expect headline earnings for the year ended December 2019 to drop by at least R4.3bn - to a headline loss - and headline earnings per share to decrease by at least R3.93.
Attributable profit for the period is expected to decrease by at least R6.1bn, resulting in an increase in loss per share of at least R5.58.