Word: steels
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...halcyon year of 1973, the U.S. steel industry rolled out 151 million tons of raw steel, employed 509,000 workers and captured 87.6% of the domestic market. By the end of last year, the industry had shed 26 million tons of capacity and 296,000 jobs; its share of the domestic market had dropped...
...looming and steelmakers screaming for relief, the Reagan Administration required foreign competitors to enter into "voluntary restraint agreements" aimed at reducing their share of the U.S. market to mid-'70s levels for a period of five years. Nonetheless, many experts doubt that foreign competition was the cause of the steel industry's woes or that protectionism is the cure...
Wishful thinking is partly to blame for Big Steel's hard times. In the mid-'70s, when mills were running at full capacity and it seemed the boom would never end, industry executives predicted that they would need 185 million tons of raw-steel capacity by 1983. In order to buy industrial peace, management agreed to extravagant labor contracts...
...after a decade of slower-than-expected economic growth, the steel industry was saddled with far too much capacity and mountainous losses. The downsizing of American-made autos was partly responsible, as was the beverage industry's shift from steel to aluminum cans. American steelmakers, meanwhile, were slow to reinvest in new equipment...
Only belatedly did U.S. producers try to modernize and become more efficient. Man hours per ton of carbon steel produced by large mills fell from 7.8 in 1978 to 5.4 in the second quarter of this year. So far, however, the Administration's effort to buy the industry some breathing space with voluntary quotas on imports has not produced results. Even if shipments from the major exporters can be slowed, the industry fears smaller producers will step in to take up the slack. So far, only one-third of the 76 steel-producing nations have agreed to limit their exports...