US Steel cuts 25% of salaried workers as energy demand falls

[NEW YORK] US Steel Corp, the domestic producer of the metal working to restructure itself amid a global oversupply, said it will cut 25 per cent of its non-union workforce.

US Steel could lay off as many as 750 workers, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The company employs about 3,000 non-union workers in the U.S., based on company filings. US Steel already cut 4,866 jobs since the beginning of 2015, according to the Bloombergcompilation.

Workers at plants supplying steel tubes used by oil and gas drillers have been hardest hit as the Pittsburgh-based company responds to a domestic energy rout. US Steel is the biggest domestic supplier of so-called oil country tubular goods.

"This is part of the ongoing adjustment to staff levels and operations due to challenging market conditions, including fluctuating oil prices, reduced rig counts, depressed steel prices and unfairly traded imports," Sarah Cassella, a spokeswoman for US Steel, said in an e-mail Wednesday.

Steel capacity utilization in the US has dropped by 2.2 percentage points since Feb 15 as domestic production fell to 1.65 million tons, according to the most recent weekly report from the American Iron and Steel Institute.

The US government has levied duties as high as 266 per cent on certain types of steel after domestic mills including US Steel and Nucor Corp accused producers from China, Brazil and 10 other countries of using illegal subsidies and selling the metal in the US at unfair prices.

The Pittsburgh Tribune was first to report the job cuts on Wednesday.

US Steel rose 3.3 per cent to US$16.78 at 11:47 am in New York. The shares have more than doubled this year.

BLOOMBERG