U.S. Steel Corp. plans to indefinitely idle "a significant portion" of its Great Lakes Works production facility in Ecorse and River Rouge and will issue layoff notices to 1,545 workers, the company said Thursday.

The iron and steelmaking operations at the Zug Island plant will begin to go dark in April. No employees will be affected before then, according to a news release from U.S. Steel. The hot strip mill rolling facility will be idled before the end of 2020, it said.

The company (NYSE: X) said the idling is part of an effort to become more nimble and responsive to market demand. The Pittsburgh-based steel company plans to shift production at Great Lakes Work to its Gary, Ind., steelworks facility.

"In order to further accelerate our strategy of creating a world-competitive 'best of both' U. S. Steel, we must make deliberate but difficult operational decisions," David Burritt, president and CEO of U.S. Steel, said in the release. "In this case, current market conditions and the long-term outlook for Great Lakes Works made it imperative that we act now, allowing us to better align our resources to deliver cost or capability differentiation across our footprint.

"Transitioning production currently at Great Lakes Works to Gary Works will enable increased efficiency in the use of our assets, improve our ability to meet our customers' needs for sustainable steel solutions and will help our company get to our future state faster."

In a separate announcement Thursday, U.S. Steel said its financial performance will be worse than expected in the fourth quarter, and the company plans to slash its dividend and suspend stock repurchases, in addition to layoffs and suspending some operations.

The company announced in August that it would temporarily lay off 200 workers at the plant, where it idled a furnace due to reduced consumer demand and "market conditions."

A United Steelworkers union representative told Crain's no one was available to comment on the U.S. Steel layoffs. Its workers are represented by United Steelworkers Local No. 1299.

The company said the final number of layoffs at Great Lakes Works might be lower than 1,545. Operations that will continue at Great Lakes Works include the pickle line, cold mill, sheet temper mill, continuous galvanizing line, annealing and warehouses, the company said in the release.