The biggest Czech steel producer, Mittal Steel Ostrava, and a
subsidiary seek to cut around 1,000 posts from their combined workforce
of 9,280, the group said Friday. An incentives package that encourages
workers to quit the parent company and its Vysoke Pece Ostrava
subsidiary is part of an ongoing restructuring aimed at increasing
productivity at Mittal Steel's Czech operations, it added. The
company's personnel manager Jiri Gwozdz said the company has still not
achieved the productivity of Western European companies or even the
European average. Mittal Steel Ostrava is 70.67 percent owned by
Netherlands-based Mittal Steel, the biggest steel producer worldwide,
while the remainder is held by the Czech government.