I remember a lot of the steel mills in the USA (and a few in Canada) were in trouble because they never modernized. The industry in Hamilton, Ontario is still strong but they do it with fewer workers; the only way to compete with cheap overseas labour is to use less labour.
Great Lakes Steel had computer controlled rolling mills in the early 1960s. It was astounding to me that management allowed Japanese engineers tour these mills with their Nicon cameras - they soon stole the technology and the steel business.
True. I worked for Republic Steel one summer between college years back in the 1950s. I worked on the Open Hearth floor. The Open Hearth process was replaced by the Basic Oxygen process a few years later. Republic didn't adopt it for that mill. The mill is still sitting there, abandoned, to this day.