Workers facing layoffs from St. Croix Alumina who have the right kind of experience won’t have too many problems finding jobs, thanks to Hovensa’s massive coker project.
At a meeting Friday among officials from the Department of Labor, St. Croix Alumina and about four prospective employers, company recruiters said they were in dire need of workers. Representatives from Hovensa, Jacobs-IMC, Bechtel International and Charlie’s-Diamond Ready Mix are either working on Hovensa’s $600-million coker project or maintaining other aspects of the refinery.
The skilled trades in most demand are millwrights, electricians, welders, iron workers, pipe fitters, instrument fitters and a variety of others. Also needed are mechanical and electrical engineers.
"We need them, like, yesterday," said Hovensa’s Valdemar Hill.
St. Croix Alumina, a subsidiary of the Aluminum Company of America, announced last week that it will shut down its alumina refinery and lay off about 400 workers by Jan. 31 because of market conditions. Because of the territory’s weak economy, the news spurred the Turnbull administration to ask the private sector to help absorb the soon-to-be laid-off workers.
Hovensa is in the midst of a $600 million coker project, which will allow it to refine heavy crude oil. Construction on the coker is being managed by Bechtel International and began in June. The project is expected to be completed in 2002. Manpower needs will increase over a 10-month period and peak at about 2,000 workers, Hovensa officials have said.
Jacobs-IMC, a Hovensa maintenance contractor, is set to begin a five- to six-week maintenance project on the refinery’s cat cracker, which will also need workers, said Jacobs-ICM’s Paul Arnold.
"It’s really tough getting experienced workers right now," Arnold said, adding that the company would rather hire local workers than import them. "We need to get most of our positions filled between now and the end of the year."
The companies' immediate need for workers could conflict with St. Croix Alumina’s timing, said Andrea Viders, St. Croix Alumina’s human resources manager. The company has yet to develop a schedule for the closure, so it was unable to tell employers when workers would be able to leave for new jobs.
"This is just too early in the game to know who we’re going to lay off early," she said. "But we want to work with our employees and we want to facilitate them getting jobs."
Viders did say the company will try to phase out some jobs before Jan. 31, which would allow workers to retain their severance packages and begin work elsewhere. Employees who leave before Jan. 31 without an agreement with the company won’t be entitled to their severance pay, she said.
St. Croix Alumina will soon provide lay-off dates to its employees and then provide a list of those workers to the Labor Department, which will work with the private sector to place them, Viders said.
Also present at the meeting was the V.I. Water and Power Authority’s Glen Byron. He said the public utility has immediate vacancies in the fields of electrical and mechanical engineering. WAPA also needs journeymen electricians.
"Competition for Class I electricians is really high out there," Byron said.