Romanian Railways set to axe 8,300 people in the restructuring process

The Romanian Railways Company (CFR) will have to axe between 7,100 and 8,300 people by 2011, which would lead to savings of around EUR 187 million next year, according to Transport Ministry's restructuring strategy for CFR. 1,630 people will be fired from CFR SA, which administrates the railway infrastructure. The saving will be of EUR 68.5 million for this company in 2011. CFR Calatori will have to reduce its staff by 2,075 employees, which will trigger EUR 47.6 million in savings in 2011. CFR Marfa will have to decrease the number of employees by up to 4,600 - the exact number will be negotiated with the employees' unions. The reductions will have to result in savings of EUR 71.4 million. CFR SA posted a loss of EUR 102.8 million as reported on July 30, while CFR Calatori expects a total loss of EUR 69.2 million for the entire 2010. Apart from firing staff, the restructuring strategy includes renting rail tracks, selling land plots for CFR SA. For CFR Calatori, measures include technical unemployment which was applied from August 16, reducing or increasing taxes for using the infrastructure based on performance parameters, expanding the ticket control, new commercial offers and introducing automatic ticket vending machines in CFR stations. An increase of 10 percent in transport tariffs was also proposed. Technical unemployment was also proposed for CFR Marfa, which was already applied from may this year, as well as the cancellation of the excise on the fuel used for railway transport and acquiring energy from the free market.