(Bloomberg) -- U.S. Steel Corp. expects to lay off about 10% of its workforce due to the coronavirus, with the pandemic forcing the company to idle most of its blast furnaces.
The Pittsburgh-based company said in a filing it sent out notices of plans for layoffs to 6,500 employees, but that it expects the actual number affected to be about 2,700.
It’s temporarily idling a blast furnace at its Gary Works facility and Mon Valley Works site, effective immediately, and will also indefinitely idle its Lone Star Tubular Operations as well as its Hughes Springs coupling production facility in Texas.
The announcement comes just a month after it idled other facilities, cut spending and increased its borrowings under a revolving credit facility. U.S. Steel reported an adjusted loss of 73 cents in the first quarter, better than the 85-cent loss that analysts on average estimated.
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