ABERCROMBIE, N.S. — Pink slips are out and the job search is on for many employees of Northern Pulp.
In a release issued Jan. 23, the company said it has begun handing out layoff notices to its employees.
The action comes a little over a month after Premier Stephen MacNeil publicly announced on Dec. 20 that the Province of Nova Scotia will not extend the deadline for the closure of Boat Harbour.
Earlier this month, Northern Pulp began winding down of operations to meet the impending deadline of Jan. 31, 2020, imposed by the Boat Harbour Act, although the province has said it will allow the mill to continue flowing wastewater from Abercrombie Point to a containment cell at Boat Harbour until the end of April.
The company states the majority of Northern Pulp’s 90 salaried employees will be laid off over the next few months with the earliest being effective Jan. 31, 2020.
Northern Pulp has already issued layoff notice to Unifor, the union representing hourly employees at the facility. Attempts to reach the local union representative were unsuccessful.
The company expects that only 20 per cent of its workforce will report for work as of Feb. 1, 2020, to continue the hibernation of the facility. In addition, the company said a small number of employees will focus on the Environmental Assessment for a new effluent treatment facility and ongoing facility monitoring and maintenance.
Northern Pulp says it has taken steps to support its workforce, including offering transfers to other Paper Excellence Canada facilities.
In addition to that, other companies with ties to the pulp and forestry sector have been actively recruiting in Pictou County, such as J.D. Irving Ltd., Port Hawkesbury Paper and Eacom Timber Corporation.
Blair van Veld, president of the Pictou County Chamber of Commerce, said he worries Pictou County will lose some of its skilled labour as these workers leave for other job opportunities and take their families with them. This compounds for mill workers who had a spouse working in Pictou County. He’s already heard of a nurse, for instance, who is married to a mill worker who will be leaving.
“We are definitely losing talent,” he said, adding it’s going to be hard to get those people back.
Long term it’s hard to say what the impact will be, but he expects there will be many spinoff job losses. Those effects will likely take a while to be seen, he believes.
“We’re really still trying to assess what the damages are.”
The Pictou County Chamber of Commerce has sent out a survey to its members to ask about how many layoffs their members expect to make and are still in the process of collecting that information.
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