How Low Steel Prices Affect Jobs, everyone sees scrapping steel prices as the worst part of their “crashed” days… but low steel prices are hurting people at the other end of the recycling loop.
The people working in the factories and smelters around the world that melt and prepare the steel really suffer from these low prices. Whether major mining companies around the world are suspending some operations or new steelmakers are slowing down, in both cases people are losing their jobs all over the world.
Major Steel Price Drop
The entire metal-related industry took notice, with steel prices falling by more than 70-75% from August 2014 to October 2015. It’s different to think that some people (like major automakers) can take advantage of very low prices, but many can. can be deeply hurt by the low prices of many metals, especially steel.
How Low Steel Prices Affect Jobs, If you want to read an article that talks more about this, check out this article from CNN Money on steel slowdown. All metal related industries are affected by these low steel prices and it is different to consider how each is affected in their own way.
Scrap Yard Machinery:
Let’s look at a larger company like Caterpillar, a major machine manufacturer. When they buy the large quantities of steel they need to build their machines, they have big deliveries… and their prices are probably based on current commodity prices. They want these prices to be lower so they can build and manufacture larger machines and from there sell their equipment to towns, demo companies, scrap processors, municipalities and other large commercial enterprises around the world.
But when steel prices are this low, industries like scrap metal companies, demo companies and oil rigs will require much less equipment, hurting the sales figures of a large company like Caterpillar.
Falling steel prices are taking a toll on scrap dealers of all kinds, but it’s really affecting many other scrap-dependent industries. Foreign shipping companies will ship less because their scrap yards either have material waiting for prices to rise or because there is less material to ship.
Another perspective to consider when talking or living in the scrap metal world.
