Jean-Luc Ruffin, secretary of the European works council for ArcelorMittal’s staff in Europe, told Paperjam on Tuesday 3 February 2026 that up to 1,150 job profiles in Luxembourg were under review for potential relocation and/or termination under the current restructuring wave, equivalent to 33% of ArcelorMittal’s workforce in the Grand Duchy.

Ruffin said ArcelorMittal Europe had already announced a first wave of relocations in 2025 that affected some 4,000 jobs and included 1,400 job losses across Europe. The current wave, announced last week, puts an additional 5,600 roles at risk, about 11% of the company’s 48,500-strong European workforce.

Luxembourg faces an outsized shock

The implied scale of the Luxembourg exposure is far wider than the average across Europe, intensifying scrutiny of whether the country’s operations are being treated as a cost base to be pared back rather than a strategic industrial footprint to be maintained.

In a statement issued by members of the European works council, workers’ representatives argued that the job numbers risk understating the wider labour market impact because the group’s support functions rely heavily on external firms.

“Every job lost at ArcelorMittal leads to indirect job losses, particularly in subcontracting, which is heavily involved in support functions.”

The council said the jobs affected include information technology staff responsible for system maintenance, cybersecurity, application support and infrastructure, as well as service providers in engineering, services, logistics, consultancy and maintenance.

‘Strategic nonsense’

The works council framed the restructuring as a strategic mistake, centred on the risks of moving critical support functions away from European sites.

“This is industrial and strategic nonsense!”

It said the approach weakens operational continuity, system and data security, the quality of support for industrial sites and responsiveness to incidents, adding that the recurrence of incidents was already raising questions about the group’s strategy. It said relocating support functions on a large scale would push decision-making further from operational realities at plant level.

“Massively offshoring support functions means disconnecting decisions and skills from the realities on the ground.”

Workers’ representatives demanded an immediate halt to any further relocations until the current plans have been completed and evaluated, as well as a fuller accounting of the impact on subcontracting and indirect employment. They also called for the retention of key skills, particularly information technology skills, in Europe, and a European industrial strategy that supports jobs and workers.

Paperjam has requested a comment from ArcelorMittal.