company spent $12 billion to build the two most modern mills in the world, in Alabama and Brazil. The worldwide Great Recession started in 2008. Heavy cutbacks in construction combined with sharply lowered demand, and prices fell 40%. ThyssenKrupp lost $11 billion on its two new plants, which sold steel below the cost of production. ThyssenKrupp's stainless steel division, Inoxum, including the stainless portion of the US plant, was sold to Finnish stainless steel company Outokumpu in 2012. Finally in 2013, ThyssenKrupp offered the remaining portion of the plant for sale at under $4 billion. They sold it the following year for $1.55 billion. In April 2015, ThyssenKrupp announced it would be investing more than €800 million in the North American region by 2020 to take advantage of the economy's reindustrialization. ThyssenKrupp Tailored Blanks In September 2012, ThyssenKrupp agreed to sell the automotive components manufacturer Tailored Blanks to the China-based Wuhan Iron and Steel Corporation for an undisclosed price. At the time of the agreement Tailored Blanks had annual sales of around 700 million euros and a global market share of about 40 percent in automotive laser-welded blanks. ThyssenKrupp Elevator In February 2020, ThyssenKrupp AG's board announced that it would sell its elevator segment to Advent International, Cinven, and RAG foundation for $18.9 billion. The transaction closed in July 2020; stand-alone company is named TK Elevator. Financial data Carbon footprint ThyssenKrupp reported Total e emissions (Direct + Indirect) for the twelve months ending 30 September 2020 at 22,700 Kt (-1,400 /-5.8% y-o-y). Employees As of 2020, the company had over 100,000 employees worldwide. Following a financial struggle in 2020, and a loss of over €5.5 billion, ThyssenKrupp announced that it will be cutting over 11,000 jobs, 7,000 of which are located in Germany. Products and sales ThyssenKrupp generates 33% of its consolidated sales in its home market. The rest of the European Union (EU) (28%) and the NAFTA region (21%) are the key trading partners for business and exports outside Germany. Business areas The operations are organized in five business areas: Components technology Elevator technology Industrial machinery Materials services Steel Construction of the corporate headquarters began in 2007. The first buildings were complete in 2010; the second phase of the building was completed in June 2015. Situated in the west of Essen, the corporate campus was designed by Chaix & Morel et associeés (Paris) and JSWD Architekten (Cologne). Their design