[image-1]U.S. Steel will lay off 33 more employees from its Lorain mill, the company announced in an unexpected move. Despite what appears to be a burst of short-term growth, the company will cut its remaining Lorain workforce by nearly 16 percent.

It’s another unfortunate notch for the city of Lorain, and it’s a headline that clashes with U.S. Steel corporate confidence.

In a CNBC interview this week, U.S. Steel CEO Mario Longhi said that his company is ready to hire back 10,000 employees. (Video embedded below.)

The company later clarified Longhi’s remarks, reporting that he was probably talking about the entire domestic steel industry. More than 16,000 workers have been laid off from steel jobs in the U.S. since January 2015. It’s unclear whether Longhi misunderstood the conversation or whether he believes that the deregulation of the manufacturing industry under a President Donald Trump will spur an American hiring spree.

In September, Scene published a feature on how U.S. Steel and Republic Steel layoffs have decimated the city of Lorain.

“Sadly, the local steel industry continues to have setbacks as it awaits recovery in demand,” Mayor Chase Ritenauer told the Chronicle-Telegram, touching on an all too familiar refrain. “Our hearts go out to the employees and the families affected by this round of layoffs especially at this time of the year.”

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This article appears in Dec 7-13, 2016.

Eric Sandy is an award-winning Cleveland-based journalist. For a while, he was the managing editor of Scene. He now contributes jam band features every now and then.

2 replies on “U.S. Steel CEO Inaccurately Promises ‘10,000 Jobs,’ as Lorain Mill Lays Off 33 More”

  1. Pull a number out of the air and celebrate creating jobs — say it loud enough and the fiction will become a major talking point for the new administration….From Russia with Love.

  2. Must have missed the part where he “promised” 10,000 jobs ..he did said the return of the industry could create 10,000 jobs ..so with automation replacing many, getting 10k of the 16k jobs lost would be huge.

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