On Friday, November 13, German steel and industrial group ThyssenKrupp announced a record loss of €2.36 billion ($3.5 billion) for the fiscal year 2008-09, compared with a profit of €3.13 billion in the same period a year ago.
In a statement released by the company, the loss is attributed to collapsing markets, nonrecurring items, such as restructuring expenditure, impairment charges and project costs for the new steel production and processing facilities in Brazil and the US. ThyssenKrupp added that sales in the fiscal year to September 30 fell by 24 percent to €40.6 billion from €53.4 billion in the previous fiscal year.
Commenting on the next fiscal year, ThyssenKrupp said that the emerging economic recovery is fragile, but that it expects sales to stabilize.
"Earnings are expected to improve significantly and to return to profit, thanks in no small part to the cost-cutting programs we have introduced," said ThyssenKrupp executive board chairman Ekkehard Schulz in the statement.
Against the background of the difficult economic situation, the number of employees also decreased significantly. On September 30, 2009 ThyssenKrupp employed 187,495 people worldwide, 11,879 or six percent fewer than at the end of the previous fiscal year. The headcount in Germany was around five percent lower at 81,229. Outside Germany the number of employees fell by seven percent to 106,266.