In the United Kingdom, the Redcar steelworks closed in 2015.

It wasn’t a surprise.

The factory’s owner, Sahaviriya Steel Industries (SSI), had long experienced serious financial challenges, as well as facing an ocean of cheaper Chinese imported steel, the largest global exporter of steel. Yet, there was no plan in place in advance of the closure. A taskforce, quickly cobbled together (including national and local authorities and trade unions) tapped into a part of a budget of £50 million to fund retraining, with another £30 million allocated for statutory redundancy payments.

The taskforce sunk £11.5 million into retraining and upskilling courses for 23,700 to be completed at local colleges and other training providers. While the courses, and the related job-placement process, helped many workers land new positions, it is a classic example of “lite Just Transition”:

At their old jobs, 80 per cent of the workers earned £30,000 or more—a solid paycheck in the area. But, the new jobs? Just one in three reported earning the same income. An analysis by David Coats of the Centre for Sustainable Work and Employment Futures at the University of Leicester found a difficult reality for many workers:

“Despite the relative swiftness with which people found new employment, a third said that it was difficult to find work and an additional 15% said it proved to be very difficult…Almost one in five (18%) reported that it took up to two years to find a new job…All the respondents to the survey were working full time at the steel works but only two-thirds (64%) were in full-time work in their new jobs. Thirteen per cent were in part-time work and 11% were self-employed.”

Unsurprisingly, and importantly, most of the Redcar workers now have jobs in non-union companies, which, obviously, translates into lower wages, reduced benefits and less job security.