Sault Ste. Marie is working to recruit skilled workers from General Motors when the automaking giant closes its Oshawa, Ont. car assembly plant at the end of this year.
Government and union officials have been trying to save the century-old manufacturing site, but GM insisted this week that it it has no “viable business case for production at Oshawa Assembly past the end of this year because of rapid changes in the North American car market, the cancellation of Oshawa products and persistent low utilization at the plant.”
"It doesn't sound like it's coming back," Tom Vair, the Sault's deputy chief administrative officer for community development and enterprise services, said Wednesday at a budget open house at the Civic Centre.
"We are talking to GM about helping to relocate some of those skilled workers to Sault Ste. Marie to fill some of the skilled trades positions that we have available that aren't being filled right now," Vair told the meeting.
"There's a number of job postings that have come up and employers, not just Algoma Steel, have expressed some difficulty in finding skilled labour," Vair told SooToday.
"One thought we had, should things proceed the way it looks in Oshawa, we might be able to attract some folks up here to take some of these positions."
"We have had members of our FutureSSM team – our labour force development co-ordinator – has had some conversations with GM," Vair said.
"There are still, obviously, union severence issues that they have to go through within the company, but we've let them know that we have some positions and we would be interested, at an appropriate time, making people aware of job opportunities."
Earlier this week, Shelley Schell, city treasurer and chief financial officer, expressed concern about the Sault's struggling economy, indicating it's affecting the municipality's ability to generate sufficient revenue to meet demand for public services.
"We need more income. We need more people to create it," Paul Scornaienchi, owner of Ergo Office Plus, told Wednesday's meeting.