BERLIN, May 30 (Reuters) - Germany's IG Metall union

sees around a fifth of jobs at Thyssenkrupp at risk, a

senior official was quoted as saying on Friday, following the

conglomerate's recent plans to turn into a holding company.

On Monday, Thyssenkrupp said it would pursue plans to sell

minority stakes in three of its five divisions, with the other

two - submarines and steel - already in the process of being

spun off or partly divested.

"The plans could see more than 20,000 employees' positions

slashed," Juergen Kerner, deputy chairman of both the IG Metall

union and Thyssenkrupp's supervisory board, told Sueddeutsche

Zeitung (SZ) newspaper.

Thyssenkrupp has already announced plans to cut or outsource

up to 11,000 jobs at its steel division TKSE and plans to slash

around 1,800 jobs at its automotive unit.

Kerner said that Thyssenkrupp's supervisory board would meet

in June to approve the spin-off of the group's submarine and

warship division TKMS, which is planned for later this year.

Turning to steel, Kerner criticised Czech billionaire Daniel

Kretinsky, who last year bought a 20% stake in TKSE and is in

talks to acquire another 30% contingent on a job cuts deal with

workers.

"I now consider Mr Kretinsky less and less to be the

right buyer," Kerner said, adding the billionaire had resisted

sharing his plans for the steel business for more than a year.

(Writing by Friederike Heine and Christoph Steitz; Editing by

Matthias Williams and Susan Fenton)