On February 2, the commissioners managing the Italian steel producer Ilva announced a process for 4,984 temporary job lay-offs at the company’s Taranto plant and 80 job lay-offs at its Marghera plant starting from March this year.
Ilva stated that due to several reasons it is necessary to partially or totally stop production at the hot rolling plant in Taranto and this means that less workers are needed. The reasons indicated in the statement are the steel industry overcapacity crisis and the legal problems related to the environmental issue that required huge investments monopolizing the company’s cash flow.
The workers involved in this process will receive a subsidy from the Italian government.
In the meantime, the two joint ventures participating in the auction to acquire Ilva assets from the Italian government have asked for a postponement of the deadline for the submission of final binding offers. The request was accepted but the date of the new deadline has not been announced yet. The two joint ventures still running in the process are Acciaitalia, composed of steel producers Arvedi and JSW plus two financial partners (Cassa depositi e prestiti and Delfin) and AM Investco Italy, which includes ArcelorMittal and Marcegaglia.