ALCOA, Tenn. (WVLT) – Alcoa, Inc. announced on Tuesday that a downturn in the economy has forced the company to make some major cutbacks.

The company has employed thousands of East Tennesseans over the decades. They now plan to lay off 450 workers at their Blount County plant over the next three months. The move is part of Alcoa’s goal of cutting their aluminum output.

"The world wide aluminum market has taken a tumble,” said Christy Newman, an Alcoa spokesman. “Over the last couple of months, we’ve seen the prices of metal fall from about $3,300 a ton to $1,500 a ton."

Company officials said to compensate, they are closing two pot lines at the south plant in Alcoa. Once the layoffs are complete, the company will no longer produce molten aluminum at the Blount County facility when the operations are complete.

“We saw it coming before Christmas,” said Brickey Beasley from the United Steelworkers Local 309. “Something was in the works, but we didn’t expect the whole pot.”

Alcoa officials met with the union around 2:45 PM on Tuesday at the Local 309 union hall. That’s where they informed the steelworkers of the layoffs. Now the union is getting ready to step in and help anyone who loses their jobs.

“For a while they’re going to get some money coming in,” Beasley said of the cutbacks, “but when you lose this many good jobs, it’s going to be hard to replace."

Gracie's in Alcoa has good food and conversation. The plant has been a part of the lives of many of its customer’s lives over the years.

"It put food on our table,” said Floyd Gervin, whose father worked at the smelting plant for 27 years. “He enjoyed his job while he was there and it paid for my clothes and everything else. It was a good job."

Alcoa plans to layoff a total of 13,500 employees at all its plants around the world. That represents 13 percent of its global workforce. In spite of the relatively smaller number of jobs being cut in East Tennessee, many still look at the Blount County plant as something special.

“It was everything for Blount County up until sometime ago,” said Bert Davis, who worked at the plant for 44 years before retiring. “It had a monopoly on the working force and it helped you raise a family.”