A Poplar Bluff manufacturer will soon begin hiring additional workers as business has picked up after the company was granted tariff exclusions earlier this year by the U.S. government.
Mid Continent Steel & Wire had reported the company was forced to cut its workforce from 500 to 300 because of tariffs placed on imported steel and aluminum products.
Jobs were lost after orders plummeted 80% due to the tariffs, company officials have said.
“I was told by the plant manager, Chris Pratt (Friday), … they are going to be hiring 70 more people between now and Jan. 1,” said Steve Halter, president of the Greater Poplar Bluff Area Chamber of Commerce.
Business, according to Halter, really has picked up at the company, and they are “needing to ramp back up.”
“Once they straightened out the tariff issues, they were able to gain a lot of business back,” Halter explained. “They will be above what their base was before all that stuff happened.”
At the time the company was granted the exclusions in April, Pratt said, the company could “methodically ramp up production levels, moving toward the growth we were on before the tariffs went into effect.”
A 25% tariff on steel went into effect June 1, 2018, and included the wire used to make the nails manufactured by Mid Continent, the largest nail manufacturer in the country.
The tariffs reportedly covered Canada and Mexico, a major source of raw materials for the company.
Mid Continent officials made pleas for an exemption from the tariffs, and the U.S. Department of Commerce later granted their requests.
In its requests, Mid Continent had said U.S. steel makers could not provide the volume of raw material that the manufacturer required.