Belleville News Democrat reported that hundreds of steel workers have returned to work at US Steel and hope more of their cohorts will follow.

Workers said that they enjoyed the time off, spent time with their families, traveled and vacationed, but were happy to be back to work.

It may be noted that the Granite City steel mill's 2,200 employees have been furloughed for more than six months and according to Mr Dan Simmons president of United Steelworkers Local 1899, about 800 have been called back over the past three weeks, with more coming back each week.

Mr Simmons said that "With hot metal coming, we were able to start making steel. It is looking fine now. We are going to keep pulling as needed in a steady steam of recalls."

Mr Erin DiPietro spokeswoman of US Steel Corporation declined to comment further about the call back, but said that workers are being brought back at US Steel plants as orders require. He added that "We continue to adjust production across our operations to stay in line with customer demand and adjust our workforce as appropriate to match our production levels."

Ms Nancy Gravatt spokeswoman from the American Iron & Steel Institute said that US steel market has witnessed slight gains in orders and production. She said capacity is running at about 49% after the industry dipped to 40% at the end of 2008.

She added that "That's a modest increase. We're just seeing it in little and small increments, a slight increase in production in nine of the last 10 weeks, but that's encouraging. I don't think US Steel would be doing this if they didn't feel this way. I'm hoping this isn't a bubble, and we're actually seeing a slow turn in the right direction in the economy as a whole."

(Sourced from www.bnd.com)