A hard blow for Vallourec employees. The French manufacturer of seamless tubes plans to cut around 2,950 jobs worldwide out of 17,000, as part of a restructuring affecting mainly industrial sites in Europe.
The group announced this Wednesday in a press release a reduction in the workforce “of approximately 2,400 positions” following in particular the closure of its German sites, as well as an additional reduction “of approximately 550 positions” in functions support. In mid-November, Vallourec, which was emerging from a long process of financial restructuring, announced the sale of its German activities and the cessation of manufacturing in Europe of tubes for industry. It planned to transfer part of its activities to Brazil.
The company clarified on Wednesday that no “credible buyer has been identified” for the German activities, and therefore launched their closure. “The closure of the German assets leads to an additional rationalization of the other European assets in charge of finishing rolled tubes in Germany,” adds Vallourec.
320 jobs cut in France
This will thus result in the closure of the “heat treatment line” of the French factory in Saint-Saulve (in the North of France). Of the 550 jobs cut in the rest of the world, “you have 70 in Scotland, by stopping the filleting activity, the volumes of which would be repatriated to the Aulnoye-Aymeries site (North) and 320 in France, including 65 at the headquarters “in Meudon (Hauts-de-Seine), detailed the CEO of the group Philippe Guillemot, during a conference call.
Some 250 jobs will be cut in the north of France, which are divided between just under a hundred on the Saint-Saulve site, around a hundred jobs on the Aulnoye-Aymeries site “and the balance on the center of shared services that we have in Valenciennes,” said Philippe Guillemot.
Regarding the calendar, “we are in discussions which take the time they must take in the countries in which we operate”, he replied cautiously, counting on departures from the end of 2022, and which will will be spread “over the whole of 2023, in particular in Germany”, since this country will continue to produce as long as the volumes which are made in Germany are not transferred to Brazil.
–
