Hammack visits historic steel plant, hears familiar refrain on hiring

Beth Hammack, the Cleveland Fed’s president and CEO, recently visited a plant that has been operating for nearly that entire century: US Steel’s US Steel Mon Valley Works–Irvin plant in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania, just outside of Pittsburgh.

The massive 650-acre facility houses the oldest hot mill in the United States and produces steel that goes into everything from cars to washing machines.

Inside the plant doors, Hammack was met with bright orange molten steel, waves of heat, and the thundering noise that accompanies processing slabs of steel into coils.

Despite the plant’s enduring productivity, company representatives told Hammack they face a common problem among Fourth District businesses: difficulty finding workers.

According to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, steel mills across the country employed about 85,700 workers in 2024—accounting for less than 1 percent of the country’s nearly 12.6 million manufacturing jobs, a number that has fallen significantly over decades.^1, 2

With the help of automation and computers, the massive Irvin facility employs about 850 people. Plant manager Don German said they still have a hard time finding employees.

In November 2025, 25 percent of the Fourth District businesses that responded to the Cleveland Fed Survey of Regional Conditions and Expectations (SORCE) said they had difficulty hiring because they couldn’t find workers with the right skills.³ That’s down from 35 percent in November 2024, but it’s still a common refrain Hammack hears when she travels around the district talking to community and business leaders.

“When we think about the economy and where growth is going to come from, I think not having enough workers could be one of those barriers,” she told NBC News on February 26.

Want to see inside the plant and hear more of what President Hammack had to say? Check out the NBC News story.

About President Beth M. Hammack’s Around the District tour

President Hammack is visiting communities across the Fourth District as part of her Around the District tour to meet and connect with the people who live and work in all corners of the region and to gain a better understanding of how the economy is working in different communities. The Cleveland Fed, with branches in Cincinnati and Pittsburgh, serves an area that comprises Ohio, western Pennsylvania, eastern Kentucky, and the northern panhandle of West Virginia. Hammack will use this information to inform her policy views and better represent the Fourth District around the Federal Open Market Committee table.