What Are the Different Types of Steel Industry Jobs?

The steel industry encompasses any business, company, or individual who mines for materials used to make steel, creates steel from those materials, fabricates parts or structures from the steel, transports the materials, sells the materials, manages employees during all these processes, or generally brings steel to customers. Steel industry jobs can therefore be quite varied, from welders to miners, and from transport drivers to project managers. Other steel industry jobs may not have much to do with steel at all: marketers and advertisers, for example, may work with steel companies to create a recognizable brand within the industry.

Steel recycling companies also offer plenty of steel industry jobs. Steel recycling is the process of gathering used steel and melting it down to be reused for various applications. The recycling industry in this case can employ trash collectors, drivers, pickers and sorters, machine operators, forklift operators, storage facilities employees, managers, salesmen, and much more. Once the materials have been effectively been recycled, a sales team may contact potential customers to work out delivery and sales details, including the cost of the product.

Welders are trained professionals who use welding equipment to bond pieces of steel together. Such steel industry jobs can be dangerous, but many jobs are readily available. A steel welder may work on construction sites erecting building frames, or he or she may work in a factory setting creating smaller parts. Automotive plants, for example, may hire a team of welders to connect steel parts used in the construction of automobiles.

Before any of this can take place, however, the steel must be created from melted iron ore, which must be extracted from the ground. Many steel industry jobs focus on this extraction in the form of mining operations. Mine machine operators, drivers, and foremen will conduct the difficult work of extracting iron ore from the ground and transferring it to processing plants where it can be melted down into usable forms. Large steel beams for buildings can be fabricated using this process. Blast furnaces are used to melt down the iron ore, and the melted material can then be poured into molds; the operators of such furnaces must be trained in safe operation of these dangerous furnaces, and the danger level of this job can be quite high. Safety inspectors are often hired to ensure safety protocols are being followed at all times to prevent injuries and deaths.