JOBS FOR LOCALS DURING CONSTRUCTION
Construction workers engaged on the Abbot Point project come from all over the country.
However, the Project Manager, Greg Mallin, said that out of the 110 people working on the coal terminal site in early February, 25 came from the local area. PCQ itself employs seven people on site of whom three are from the Bowen area.
“The construction phase is good for skilling as we’ve brought in people from the local community and they’ve had the opportunity to be upskilled and gain experience in the construction environment,” Mr Mallin said.
“The support from the community has been excellent. We would like to employ as many locals as we can that have the necessary skills”.
Nevertheless, the terminal project has not been immune from Australia’s general scarcity of skilled engineering and construction workers, many of whom have taken jobs at mines and related projects inland. As a result it probably took the civil contractors a bit longer than expected to build up human resources to the required level.
PCQ CEO, Brad Fish, said that while there was a shortage of skilled workers in Australia, PCQ was lucky that by their nature port projects are on the coast, so probably people would rather work on the coast than inland.
ends
26 February 2007
For further information:
Gary Campbell
Corporate Relations Manager
Ports Corporation of Queensland
Ph: (07) 3224 4346
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