Suncor Energy is ensuring its employees that layoffs are far from the top of mind at this moment.
The oil company has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic and current economic state.
They recently reduced their 2020 budget by $1.5 billion.
Shelley Powell, Suncor’s Senior Vice President – Base Plant, tells Mix News letting their employees go is a last resort.
“Our commitment is to our people first and foremost and we’re going to work really hard to do everything we can to maintain our workforce.”
While no long-term employees have been laid off, the measures Suncor has taken have limited the number of contractors on site.
“We did shut down a number of projects on our site, we really just have critical maintenance activities happening right now,” added Powell.
Suncor’s sites are also starting to look rather empty.
Powell says over 50 per cent of staff are currently working remotely to help limit the spread of the virus.
“We have a number of people continuing to support our operations remotely either from there homes or even from different cities outside of the Wood Buffalo community.”
This has also shrunk the number of fly-in-fly-out employees coming to the region.
Meanwhile, for those who continue to work on-site, the company has implemented multiple measures to ensure everyone’s safety.
This includes temperature screening all employees flying in, closing all the gyms and recreation facilities, eliminating the use of shared-bathrooms, changing the arrangement of the dining room, setting up multiple hand-sanitizer spots, and increasing the frequency of cleaning.
If an outbreak were to happen, like that at Imperial Oil’s Kearl site, the company has set up quarantine areas so the spread of the virus is limited.
LISTEN: On this edition of Fort McMurray Matters, we talk with @Suncor about measures they’re taking to stop the spread of COVID-19 and protect their employees #ymm #rmwb https://t.co/eIc3Bb86jc
– MIX 103.7 News (@Mix1037FMNews) April 16, 2020