2020 meant layoffs across industries, businesses

By Jimmy Lovrien jlovrien@duluthnews.com

The year started off promising. Unemployment rates were low, the economy seemed to be booming and the area was ready to welcome tourists in the summer.

But then COVID-19 hit the U.S.

To curb its spread, officials in March launched shutdowns and stay-at-home orders, disrupting supply chains, triggering demand for many products to fall and forcing thousands of layoffs across the Northland.

Unemployment rates in the Duluth metropolitan area — St. Louis, Carlton and Douglas counties — reached 12.3% and 12.4% in April and May.

“I don’t think there are many jobs that haven’t been impacted,” Brian Hanson, CEO and president of APEX, a Duluth economic development nonprofit, said in June.

The Big Three car companies shut down production lines to curb the spread of COVID-19, and people were buying less in general, causing a dramatic drop in the demand for steel. Three of the six iron ore mines and pellet plants on the Iron Range temporarily idled, laying off a combined 1,760 workers, more than one-third of the 4,105 total jobs at the Iron Range’s mines in 2019.

Less iron ore shipments meant less freighter movement on the Great Lakes, forcing three ships in the Great Lakes Fleet into an early layup with 100 crew members laid off.

Airline traffic took a nosedive.The AAR Corp. aircraft maintenance base in Duluth, which serviced United airliners, closed for good. And with it, 269 jobs were gone.

Demand for paper products fell. Verso’s paper mill in Duluth closed and was put for sale, leaving 225 without jobs. Sappi’s mill in Cloquet rotated through layoffs and UPM’s Blandin mill in Grand Rapids was temporarily idled.

Businesses cut spending, including newspaper advertisements. The Lake County News-Chronicle — part of the Duluth Media Group — and the

Scenic Range News in Bovey closed. The Mesabi Daily News and Hibbing Daily Tribune merged into the Mesabi Tribune. The Duluth News Tribune, laid off employees and went from daily print editions to twice-weekly papers, but produces e-editions seven days a week.

Duluth’s restaurant and hospitality industry Duluth saw 3,500 food preparation and serving occupations file for unemployment insurance between March 15 and June 6, according to the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development.

“(We lost) basically our entire hospitality

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Dave walks the next house along his route with a traditional newspaper carrier’s bag slung over his shoulder

Wednesday, June 24, in Gary-New Duluth. Wittke walks his portion of the route while his wife, Tina, drives to places farther away. The News Tribune went from being printed daily to just twice a week in July. It is now delivered by mail, not carriers.

(File / News Tribune) industry,” Elena Foshay, director of workforce development for the city, said in June. “The good part is that unemployment insurance eligibility was expanded.”

A cautious recovery

By late summer, all but one Iron Range mine had restarted and called back its employees. The last, U.S. Steel’s Keetac, was scheduled to resume production in mid-December.Negotiations are underway to sell Verso, boosting the hopes it will again employ hundreds of workers in Duluth if it converts to making brown paper for paper grocery bags and cardboard.

But for some of the other hard-hit industries, recovery is less certain.

AAR won’t be coming back, but if Utah-based Borsight Inc. is successful in its bid to land a major contract to service the U.S. Air Force’s fleet of F-16 Fighting Falcons, the company could bring as many as 100 jobs back to the former Northwest Airlines maintenance hangar.

Minnesota restaurants and bars, despite returning to business this summer, were hit with another round of closures in November as COVID-19 cases surged, forcing mass layoffs again. This time, federal government aid wasn’t readily available for small businesses. u