Tata Steel announces it will cut 35 jobs in the West Midlands

Tata Steel has announced that it intends to cut 35 jobs in the West Midlands because of the rising cost of doing business.

The company is based in Wednesbury and in Yorkshire and says it wants to shed a total of 720 jobs nationally by March next year.

The GMB union has described the decision as 'devastating' and has called on the Government to ensure competitive tariffs for large scale power users so that the push for low carbon does not drive heavy industry out of the UK.

The firm said the business had been under-performing in the face of steel imports due to the strong pound and higher electricity costs which it said were double those of European competitors.

Tata said it had "identified 720 positions which will potentially become redundant" but promised to work with unions and employees to redeploy workers and minimise the number of compulsory redundancies.