US Steel forced to hire more lawyers than engineers

The steel industry is preparing to bring back as many as 10,000 American jobs if Trump reduces taxes and regulations.

US Steel CEO Mario Longhi shared astonishing news in an interview with CNBC Wednesday.

According to the CEO, government regulations forced his company, United States Steel, to hire more lawyers than engineers. Under those conditions, many production jobs were lost, and the result is that China alone now produces more than 10 times the amount of steel produced in America.

At one time, US Steel was the largest steel producer and the largest corporation in the world, growing into the world’s first billion-dollar company. By 1943, the business had more than 340,000 employees. Well paid, US Steel workers in Alabama average $101,000 per year.

Under heavy taxation, regulation and unionization, the company was forced to downsize. By 2001, its total steel production dropped to its 1902 level. Today, the company employs just 37,000 workers.

Longhi  described how difficult it became to manage the government’s regulation scheme. “There was a point in time in the past couple years that I was having to hire more lawyers to try to interpret these new regulations than I was hiring … engineers,”  he explained. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“When you get into some situations where we’re being asked to control some substances in water that are far lower than what nature naturally offers, that’s irrational,” he added.

Looking to the future, Longhi is expecting changes from President-elect Donald Trump that would allow US Steel to hire back laid-off employees.

“We already structured to do some things, but when you see in the near future improvement to the tax laws, improvements to regulation, those two things by themselves may be a significant driver to what we’re going to do,” he said.

“I’d be more than happy to bring back the [reportedly close to 10,000] employees we’ve been forced to lay off during that depressive period,” he stated, referring to the entire American steel industry.