Tariffs may mean more US steel jobs. Will there be workers to fill them?

BLYTHEVILLE, Arkansas, April 23 (Reuters) - Thomas Reisinger commutes almost an hour-and-a-half each way for a job in a cavernous steel processing plant here.

"I don't speed," he said dryly.

Some of his coworkers come from much farther, including one who spends workweeks living in a camper and returns home only at weekends. This corner of eastern Arkansas is dotted with RV parks that cater to such workers.

America will need many more like them to achieve President Donald Trump's vision for a hugely expanded U.S. factory sector. The steel industry — hit with 25% tariffs as one of the first salvos of Trump’s trade war — is a prime example of his quest to use taxes on imports to rebuild manufacturing in the American heartland.

But foreign competition - while a drag on steel prices - isn't the biggest challenge for steel companies around here. It's finding workers.

Mississippi County's slogan is "The Land of Steel" and that's no exaggeration. Nearly a quarter of the 20,000 jobs in the county are in sprawling mills owned by Nucor and U.S. Steel and ancillary businesses like pipe makers and other metals processors that have flocked here to be close to them, according to Chmura Economics & Analytics, an economics analysis firm.

Clif Chitwood, president of the Mississippi County Economic Development Foundation, estimates 9% of direct jobs in the steel mills are filled by workers who come from such great distances that they live in RVs or cheap apartments during the workweek.

"Many of these guys work four-day, 12-hour shifts - then have four days off - which make it possible for some to live five or six hours away," he said. Some even share temporary accommodation with workers on opposite shifts, he added.

The tight labor market here reflects local and national trends.

The U.S. stopped training hordes of factory workers decades ago; retirements and immigration crackdowns are draining the pool of labor available. Many Americans have come to see these jobs as precarious, as globalization has forced the closure of swathes of domestic manufacturing.

Just over 20% of manufacturing plants across the U.S. that said they failed to produce at full capacity cited a shortage of labor or specific skills as the key reason, according recent data from the Census Bureau.

Asked about a skills shortage in manufacturing, White House spokesman Kush Desai said that more than one in ten young adults in America were not employed, in higher education, or pursuing some sort of vocational training.

"There is no shortage of untapped potential within the labor force we already have to grow our manufacturing sector," he said.

Mississippi County — even as the steel industry blossomed — ...
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