U.S. Steel Corp. recently announced 770 layoffs within its company, and there may have been a collective local sigh of relief that Region workers weren’t among the trimmed workforce.
That would be the wrong response.
The layoffs were effective at mills in Texas and Alabama, not Northwest Indiana, according to the company.
However, the long-running declines in the steel industry should embolden the Region to continue diversifying its economy beyond the bygone days when steel was truly king in Northwest Indiana.
U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky, D-Ind., and other congressional leaders should continue fighting unfair business practices from foreign steel companies — a root cause of American steel’s most recent woes. That fight is important and admirable.
And there is no doubt steel remains an important part of our Region economy, with scores of local residents still working for Region mills.
But our Region already has seen steep declines in the steel industry in recent decades, with a mere fraction of the jobs remaining compared to Northwest Indiana steel’s heyday.
The recently announced U.S. Steel layoffs — or revelations such as ArcelorMittal’s $15.7 billion in debt after losing $8 billion last year — are continued warning signs we need far more than steel in our economic backbone.
We need a full skeleton of diverse fields — something that provides structure when individual pieces of the local economy falter.
We’ve seen far too many examples of what happens to communities that put all of their eggs in one industrial basket. Look no further than the desperate blight of Gary or other parts of the Region’s urban core, where an economic storm has left abandoned buildings, crime and poverty in its wake.
But the Region also has plenty of examples of innovation upon which a sustainable, diverse economy can grow.
Tri-State Industries, a Hammond-based pipe company, reportedly spent a decade looking for an entity that could install robotic systems to automate part of its Hammond factory.
When what the company sought never surfaced, it found a way to create its own spin-off robotics company, Tri-State Automation, to fill the need.
Region initiative Ready NWI is making tireless efforts to enhance the quality of education and prepare students for practical careers. But we need to give those students reasons to live and work in Northwest Indiana after they achieve college degrees or vocational job training.
Steel is just a commodity. Factories that make use of steel to produce goods and services also would enhance our Region’s economic strength in meaningful ways.
Northwest Indiana can’t afford to relax. The layoffs elsewhere are a blaring siren, warning us of potential disaster in our own future.