Editorial: U.S. Steel layoffs sign of bigger issue?

Maybe 2,700 doesn’t seem like that big a number right now.

There are 30 million people who have filed for unemployment benefits in the United States in the six weeks since the coronavirus pandemic closed businesses and sent workers home. Last week alone, there were 3.8 million laid-off Americans filing claims.

In the Pittsburgh area, the jobless numbers jumped to 6% in March. Chris Briem, a regional economist with the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Urban & Social Research, projects that they leaped even further in April — higher than 16%. Pennsylvania’s Center for Workforce Information and Analysis announced Wednesday that more than 73,000 people are out of work.

So 2,700 U.S. Steel workers spread across Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois and Michigan might not seem like much more than a drop in a very large bucket.

But U.S. Steel’s plan to lay off thousands at plants in those four states, including the Mon Valley Works in the Pittsburgh-based company’s backyard, strikes at the very heart of local fears.

They aren’t just any jobs. They are steel jobs, the jobs that built Pittsburgh. The jobs that still define the city’s identity, even as the steel industry has shrunk and others have expanded to take its place.

What is scarier is what else it could mean.

It was one year ago that U.S. Steel announced a more than $1 billion investment into the Mon Valley Works, something CEO and President David Burritt called “truly transformational.” They were aimed at improving efficiency and environmental sustainability.

Planning and permitting for those projects in Braddock, Clairton and West Mifflin began in January, despite steel industry nervousness surrounding tariffs and the trade war with China.

U.S. Steel’s move — which could actually mean as many as 6,500 jobs but the 2,700 is what is expected — isn’t just alarming because of all the other jobs being lost right now.

It’s because that billion-dollar announcement last year gave people hope for both the economy and the environment.

It’s because steel is the skeleton of the nation, and right now, it’s a little rusty. U.S. Steel’s announcement closes seven of its 10 American blast furnaces and projects layoffs of 10% of its workforce. That comes at the same time the company announced first-quarter net losses of $391 million.

This is unlikely to be the kind of transformation Burritt meant.

Let’s hope this is an insular move, like hibernating to wait out the winter and emerge again in the spring. Let’s hope not only that the jobs come back but that the huge investment in the Mon Valley Works and their impact on local air quality still comes to pass.

But this isn’t the first sign of contraction. The company announced more than 1,500 layoffs in Michigan right before Christmas.

Maybe the Mon Valley Works only will lose a sliver of those 2,700 jobs, but every time U.S. Steel makes a cut, it can lead to questions about what it means for the future of the industry and the area.