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Govt to retrench 5,000 PSM employees

T A MALIK

ISLAMABAD: The government has decided to retrench 5,000 employees of Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) under its restructuring and right-sizing plan, sources said here on Tuesday.

The PSM has formulated a restructuring plan to make the organization economically viable and to reduce its expenditures, and submitted it to the Ministry of Industries for approval.

An official of the ministry told Business Recorder that there are more than 20,000 employees of various grades working in PSM and right-sizing of the organisation would help to enhance its profitability.

Sources said that the employees would be offered 'Golden Hand Shake' scheme and maximum benefit would be given to them. After passing specified time of the scheme the surplus employees would be retired forcefully.

Sources said that retrenchment of 5,000 employees would be made within shortest possible time and those, who were appointed on political basis during the previous governments of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, would be retired.

All the employees from grades 1 to 18 would be considered for retrenchment and no pressure would be accepted to spare the surplus employee from retrenchment, sources of the ministry said.

Industries Secretary Abu Shamim Arif, who was also the chairman of the PSM some couple of months before, took various steps during his tenure to increase the profit of the organization and reduce the expenditures.

The management has observed that right-sizing of PSM would further reduce the expenditure because thousands of employees are surplus.