Against the background of continuing weak orders at ThyssenKrupp Steel Europe AG, short-time working is being introduced from August 2012. This has been agreed between the works council and the company. Short-time working will affect the locations Duisburg-Hamborn, Duisburg-Hüttenheim, Bochum, Dortmund and Siegerland. The Finnentrop location is initially excluded from short-time working. Over the past few weeks the lower level of capacity utilization has been offset initially using instruments such as flexible working time accounts, leave accounts and repair shifts.

As things stand at present the company expects that short-time working will have to be continued until the end of the year. Currently affected by the temporary adjustment measures are the cold-rolling and coating areas and parts of the hot-rolled processing operations. Once the details of the short-time working plans for August have been agreed with the works councils, some 2,170 out of a total of 17,500 employees are expected to be affected by short-time working. Together with the works councils, the company is looking into carrying out skill-upgrading measures during short-time working.