If there’s a silver lining to eventual workforce reductions at Hudbay Flin Flon, it’s Hudbay Snow Lake.
As The Reminder reported last week, Hudbay could be adding 100-plus workers to its Snow Lake operations in the coming years.
Up to 100 workers may be needed at the burgeoning Lalor mine. An unknown number of employees will be required at a paste backfill plant due to open in 2018. And Hudbay plans to reopen its Snow Lake gold mill, with still more workers required.
The forward progression in Snow Lake is likely to provide many job opportunities for Hudbay employees who will be impacted by pending cutbacks in Flin Flon.
Hudbay’s best-case scenario will see the company lose 500 positions in Flin Flon by 2019 or 2020 – 300 of them through attrition and 200 of them through layoff – after 777 mine closes.
If Snow Lake can add, say, 120 jobs by then, suddenly we’re looking at 80 layoffs.
Hudbay has an aging workforce. If a good percentage of those laid-off workers remain in Flin Flon, and then get a call back to replace retiring employees before their EI runs out, then suddenly the outlook is much brighter than many residents now imagine.
Of course another “if” is whether Hudbay Flin Flon workers would want to work in Snow Lake, either at Lalor mine, the Stall concentrator, the paste backfill plant or the gold mill.
A good number of workers would prefer to avoid the commute and time away from family, but there is a decades-old tradition of Flin Flon-Snow Lake commuting in both directions, so obviously many folks are willing.
Hudbay has made the commute especially convenient by establishing a 170-person work camp at Lalor. Employees put in their rotations and then take a few days off back in Flin Flon, which is only two hours away – close to home by mining camp standards.
Again, this is all a best-case scenario, based on early estimates and the proper alignment of the stars. No one can guarantee things will turn out as described here.
But it is plausible, in the near term at least, that the Hudbay reductions could have a relatively minimal effect on Flin Flon.
The longer-term implications will be felt under any scenario. Hudbay hopes to keep job reductions down to 500, but that’s still a very significant number. Until another mine is found, this will mean 500 fewer career opportunities for our citizens, particularly young men and women looking to start a life out of high school or university.
Flin Flon will also need to monitor how many Hudbay retirees choose to stay in the community. Over the past 20 years, the percentage has been quite high; the best guess is this trend will continue, but every effort must be made to maintain our communities as attractive places to spend one’s golden years.
Many local business owners will tell you Flin Flon’s economy is heavily dependent on outside communities, namely Pelican Narrows, Sandy Bay, Deschambault Lake and Cranberry Portage.
Now Flin Flon’s employment future is heavily dependent on an outside community in Snow Lake. It’s a first for Flin Flon, but it could serve the community well as Hudbay transitions to a one-Manitoba-mine company, at least for the foreseeable future.
