ArcelorMittal is planning to lay off around 425 employees at its Cleveland steel mill in August, following its actions to idle the plant’s blast furnace in April.
In a letter dated July 27 to the Ohio state government stating its intentions, the steelmaker indicated it was filing a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) notice regarding the layoffs, which are slated to take place from August 1.
Michael Madar, general manager of the Cleveland plant cited “unforeseen deterioration” in market demand for the company’s products as the reason for the reduced operations and subsequent layoffs at the plant. He added that the layoffs would be indefinite until demand gains traction.
The Cleveland facility currently employs 1,863 people and has an annual capacity of about 3.8mn mt of hot-rolled and hot-dip galvanized steel sheets. It houses two blast furnaces that were idled in April and an 84-inch’ strip mill.
This is the third ArcelorMittal facility in Ohio to have announced layoffs. In June, the company idled its Columbus Coating galvanizing plant and its Obetz processing facility for an unspecified period, with the action impacting a total of around 120 people who worked at the two plants.