(source: Courtesy of USSK)
“The management of U.S. Steel Košice decided that as of February we will not continue with a shortened working week,” said Ľubomíra Šoltésová, company public relations manager, as cited by the TASR newswire.
U.S. Steel Košice (USSK) shortened the work week as of the beginning of 2016 in response to the difficult situation on the steel market. The reason was a dramatic drop in orders and poor situation on the steel market in Europe due to extreme volumes of products with dumping prices imported to Europe over the past few months. USSK, which employs more than 12,000 internal as well as external workers, agreed on the shortened week with local trade unions.
One tonne of local steel is $50 more expensive than that from China. But during the final week of January China decided to lower production by 100-150 million tonnes of steel, the Sme daily wrote. This should help also the Košice-based company.
The European Commission has also set provisional tariffs of up to 16 percent for China and of up to 26 percent for Russia.
