The Fraserburgh Task Force, set up to help workers and communities affected by Young's Seafood decision to reduce its operations in the Scottish town, has released an update on the measures it is taking to deliver an Economic Recovery Plan.
Included in the actions are:
• Support for directly employed and agency staff to find new jobs through a resource center, and action to encourage local employers to flag up vacancies
• Work with industry bodies to identify new fish sector opportunities in the region
• Support for the public and private sector to regenerate Fraserburgh and the wider area
Up to 200 jobs will be lost at Young’s plants in Fraserburgh and Grantown-on-Spey in January, followed by 450 others later in the year.
The company considered plans to close both plants after it lost a GBP 100 million (EUR 138.5 million; USD 152.2 million) contract with retailer Sainsbury’s to Marine Harvest earlier this year, but later decided to keep both sites open and cut its workforce from 900 to around 250.
“Since the task force met for the first time in October, the Economic Recovery Plan to support workers and help the local economy is taking shape thanks to intensive work by all members,” said Fergus Ewing, Scottish business minister.
“We continue to support Young’s staff in their bid to stay in work through our initiative for responding to redundancy situations, Partnership Action for Continuing Employment (PACE). PACE is providing on site skills development and employability support to all Young’s Seafood staff.
“We know that the majority of directly employed Young’s staff continue to work but face redundancy in the New Year, while many agency staff have already been redeployed or moved away. We are engaged with other employers in the area, across all sectors, to flag up vacancies to affected employees so that we can minimize the time people may be out of work and a major jobs fair will take place in Fraserburgh on 28 January.
“Industry bodies are collaborating to explore the potential for a Fraserburgh seafood processing hub and looking at current and future market opportunities for the sector,” said Ewing.
The task force includes representatives of Young’s, USDAW, Scottish Enterprise, Skills Development Scotland, Aberdeenshire Council, local elected representatives and industry bodies.
Its next full meeting will be on 29 January.
