Layoffs Begin

It's hard to believe that it's January already - almost 60 days have passed since I informed you that layoffs would take place where I work, affecting some 350 employees. I am relieved to say that I am not one of those individuals being laid off. But there are a lot of co-workers that are, people I work with day in and day out and for them, I feel very sorry for. Many of them have families and are raising young kids, even. They can't afford to be laid off. There's unemployment - but that's nowhere close to a regular week's pay. You just have to hope that for everyone involved, the economy will make a quick turn around and we'll be producing iron ore pellets just like we've been able to do for the past few years.

The problem is, nobody seems to know how long this economic downturn will last. The best predictions seem to say at least a year, if not longer. But like I said, that's not even set in stone. Additionally, another 75 people will be laid off beginning in March. People with more seniority than me are being laid off in the next round. Now I have a job that has pretty good job security which is why I shouldn't get affected with the newest round of layoffs. But who's to say they don't need as many people with the same job classification as me? Maybe they only need half as many people that's required to run the place right now. That could mean I'd be laid off as well. You just never know how things can turn up. And with the amount of rumors that have been going wild at that place for the last month, you can't really pay much attention to it. All you can do is stay vigilant and hope for the best and to not let all the rumors get to your head.

So it's official; the layoffs will begin starting this Sunday and another round comes in March. The full listing of names on the new list have not been revealed, but I am expecting not to be laid off then. But I'm not counting my chickens before they're hatched, because anything can happen. I don't want to get my hopes up too high that'll I'll be safe, otherwise I might be in for a big fall. Our production has been cut back to 2.7 million tons of pellets for the year, compared to the 5 million we produced last year. So as you can see, it's a big drop off which is why we won't need near as many people running the plant as in the past few years. From one end of the plant to the other, it's 0.75 of a mile long. I would say only 0.25 of it will be running this year. And until the global economy picks up and there's more of a demand for steel, that's probably where it'll stay.