Steel boom creating few U.S. jobs

Steel boom creating few U.S. jobs

According to recent U.S. market news, despite the huge global surge in steel demand, the boom is not effectively producing the much-needed jobs in the US steel industry. According to the US Department of Labor, which released the July unemployment statistics on Friday August 6, 2004, only 32'000 jobs were added to the US economy in the month of July. This figure was far below the 235'000 new jobs predicted by analysts. A spokesman for the United Steelworkers of America (USWA) stated that hiring in the steel industry this year has been concentrated at United States Steel Corp (USSC) and International Steel Group (ISG), which has not allowed for much improvement toward restoring the 54'000 US steel mill jobs lost since 1998. According to a research analyst with USWA, roughly 1'500 new jobs were created for steelworkers in the month of June. Nonetheless, this small increase marked the first employment gains in the US steel industry since December 2003 but should be analyzed in the context of the 47'000 US steel jobs lost since January 2001. International Steel Group could not provide complete statistics on its recent hiring, but last week announced that it had re-hired 50 laid-off workers at a site in Cleveland, adding to 50 other re-hires last month in West Virginia. Further, a spokesman from United States Steel announced that the company's hiring pattern in 2004 has been focused on replacing retiring and resigning workers and that it plans to maintain its US payroll steady at 25'000. The surge in China's economy has done little to boost the jobs in the US steel industry which is still recovering from a five-year downturn which resulted in more than 40 bankruptcies, at least 17 liquidations, and widespread consolidation. The obligation to provide healthcare to retirees puts the US steel industry at a severe disadvantage to competitors in Canada and Europe where retirees are covered by national health-care plans.