American Samoa’s sole tuna canning operation is competing for staff with a program for disaster recovery work.
The National Emergency Grant program or NEG hires cannery workers who lost their jobs when Samoa Packing’s Chicken of the Sea plant closed last September and others now without work because of the earthquake and tsunami that hit at the same time.
Starkist Samoa’s general manager says the cannery has the capability of processing close to 500 tons of fish a day, but at the moment is only able to produce three quarters of that because it doesn’t have enough fish cleaners.
Radio NZ correspondent in American Samoa, Monica Miller, says the NEG has hired more than 2,000 workers since late last year to assist government agencies with recovery efforts.
“The fish cleaners with the minimum wages they make about $4 an hour but with this National Emergency Grant Program those employees are getting like $7.50 an hour so a lot of people have opted to work for this program.â€
Monica Miller says Star Kist Samoa employs more than 1800 people.
