United States Steel plans to reopen a portion of its Granite City factory that has been idled for nearly a year, calling back about 220 laid-off employees.

Those employees will return to work at the Metro East facility’s hot strip mill, which finishes steel made elsewhere.

The blast furnace and other steelmaking facilities will remain idled, U.S. Steel said in a news release.

The Pittsburgh company laid off about 1,500 workers a year ago. Some 500 employees are still working at the Granite City Works on lines that finish steel made in other blast furnaces. The hot strip mill in Granite City has been idled since January.

U.S. Steel CEO Mario Longhi said last week that the company planned to hire back as many as 10,000 workers, many of whom were laid off as the company tried to cut costs amid a steep drop in global steel demand.

After months of not hearing from the corporation about the steel mill’s future, Tuesday’s announcement was welcome news, said Granite City Mayor Ed Hagnauer.

“There’s 200 families right now who are going to have a lot better Christmas than they thought,” he said.

Hagnauer noted there are still more than 1,000 former workers who are out of work, and he said an event organized by retired steelworkers this Thursday will offer baskets of food and gift cards to those who are still waiting for the whole plant to start back up.

“It’s hard to get these guys to come down here and do this,” he said. “They’ve got their pride.”