Thomko Petro Chemical Blog

Relocating for work . . . 

From Filipino electricians in western Australia and Indian petrochemical engineers working in the Persian Gulf, to Latvian stone masons in Northern Ireland, the world’s labor force is on the move.

Globalization means that not only are companies are moving operations offshore to where there is cheaper labour – but workers are increasingly prepared to cross borders to find where the best jobs are.

Popular images of migrant workers are of the of the poor, the oppressed and unskilled. Yet according to Manpower, one of the world’s largest recruitment companies, they are more likely to be young, under 30 years of age, well-educated with university or vocational qualifications, and female as much as male.

This matters to employers who, according to Manpower, will increasingly be competing for workers, such as the managers at Irish meat processing plants “whose skilled Slovak butchers are being lured away by competitors in Norway”.

Unlike earlier migrations, today’s migrant workers are not on a one-way trip. Flights home are readily available. Irish emigrants began returning a decade ago as the economy of the “Celtic Tiger” boomed. Now, it is Indian professionals and Polish construction workers who are returning to seek new opportunities.

Competition for such workers is increasing. Even oil-rich Gulf states can no longer rely on a seemingly endless flow of cheap engineers and construction workers from the Asian sub-continent.

One Gulf company, for example, told Manpower it was “starting to miss crucial project deadlines” because it could not “import the skilled expatriate engineers and project managers it used to be able to get easily.”

Propelling labour mobility over the next few decades will be huge demographic changes, in particular the ageing and stagnating populations in developed countries. According to the United Nations, Italy’s population is expected to decline from 57 million to 41 million by 2050 while Japan’s is projected to fall 17% to 105 million by 2080.

Workers are also becoming more aware of their worth, with the internet providing much greater information on job opportunities at home and abroad, says Manpower.

Workers will also move within national boundaries to find work. China is currently struggling to accommodate “the rush of individuals leaving its poor western provinces in search of better jobs in the glittering commercial hubs of the country’s east coast,” it says.

Japan has also seen a huge population shift to its cities, imperilling its agricultural sector, while Norway must deal with the emptying of its rural north - and Mexico’s southern states contend with…a massive talent drain to the industrialised northern border states.

Employers who have moved offshore in search of cheap labour can get caught out, however, as local economies develop and other multinationals move in, competing for a limited number of skilled workers. According to Manpower, it is not unusual for workers at call centres in Bangladesh to attend an interview, accept a new job and start straight away at a higher salary all in the same lunch hour, says Manpower.

Read full article at FT.com

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2ff92332-3ed2-11dd-8fd9-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1

Companies that use the testing process is only growing, and it includes much more than the petro-chemical industry.

Although there is growth all over the Golden Triangle with the expansion of refineries like Motiva and Total, there's a slight bump in the road.

The Industrial Alliance says more and more potential employees are failing drug tests and can't work for the expansion projects.

Some drug screening agencies say companies are calling daily, wanting to have their employees screened.

Rob Bittle is the owner of Advantage Drug Testing in Beaumont. He says his business is booming since the announcement of several refinery expansions in South County. In fact, he says his company has grown more than 300 percent.

But with that growth, comes a problem with finding enough employees to pass the tests. Out of every fifty, eight people will fail. "We do see them and see people denied access and unfortunately they lose their jobs.

This doesn't allow us the number of people we need to build and maintain facilities, according to Mark Viator, a facilitator with the Industrial Alliance.

The Southeast Texas economy at a deficit. "With a current workforce of about 13 to 14 thousand  another 14 thousand. needed. Every employee that walks through the gates must take a drug screening.

"Delivery people, supply people, supply houses, sub contractors, special skills and services, engineers are all required to be drug screened," says Bittle. "They have a responsibility to the community, environment, their employees, their equipment, to make sure people are fit for duty. Not taking drugs. A responsibility and trust the industry is not willing to break."

Drug screening agencies say the number of companies that use the testing process is only growing, and it includes much more than the petro-chemical industry.
 
http://www.kfdm.com/news/says_25751___article.html/drug_people.html

January's payrolls decline underscores a troubling trend—the U.S. economy's ability to generate new jobs is fading fast

Like lava flowing from a volcano, creative destruction—the economic notion that old companies and industries have to be wiped out before new ones can be born, first popularized by economist Joseph Schumpeter—is scary but beautiful.

In the New Economy of the late 1990s, this phenomenon turned the U.S. into an amazing job-generating machine, because the rapid destruction of companies and jobs in flagging industries was outpaced by even more rapid creation of new jobs in growing sectors. From the bottom of the 1991 recession through the economy's peak in early 2001, the U.S. created 24 million jobs.

Read full article at Business Week