Resolute Forest Products to Cut Jobs

Resolute Forest Products is a name that most of you are likely to be less than familiar with, unless you spend a lot of time thinking about paper products. For those of you who are not that familiar with the company here is a look at how they have chosen to describe themselves, “Resolute Forest Products is a global leader in the forest products industry with a diverse range of products, including newsprint, commercial printing papers, market pulp and wood products. The Company owns or operates 22 pulp and paper mills and 22 wood products facilities located in the United States, Canada and South Korea. Marketing its products in close to 80 countries, Resolute has third-party certified 100% of its managed woodlands to sustainable forest management standards. Resolute and other member companies of the Forest Products Association of Canada, as well as a number of environmental organizations, are partners in the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement. The group works to identify solutions to conservation issues that meet the goal of balancing equally the three pillars of sustainability linked to human activities: environmental, social and economic.”

Sadly the company is getting ready to cut back on about 239 jobs in the near future. The company will be cutting all of the jobs from its Fort Frances location. This many job cuts from a single location is enough to qualify as a mass layoff action under the current federal guidelines. For those of you who are not familiar with the idea of a mass layoff action here is a look at how the company chooses to describe itself, “The Mass Layoff Statistics (MLS) program collects reports on mass layoff actions that result in workers being separated from their jobs. Monthly mass layoff numbers are from establishments which have at least 50 initial claims for unemployment insurance (UI) filed against them during a 5-week period. Extended mass layoff numbers (issued quarterly) are from a subset of such establishments—where private sector nonfarm employers indicate that 50 or more workers were separated from their jobs for at least 31 days.”

The company put out a recent statement about the job cuts that they are making in order to right its balance sheet, “Resolute Forest Products (NYSE: RFP) (TSX: RFP) today announced the indefinite idling of the kraft mill and paper machine number 5 (PM5) at its pulp and paper operation in Fort Frances, Ontario. The kraft mill has an annual production capacity of approximately 200,000 metric tons of market pulp, while PM5 has an annual capacity of 105,000 metric tons of groundwood specialty printing papers… The running down of fiber inventories and orderly shutdown of the Fort Frances kraft mill is expected to be completed by late November. PM5 will also continue to operate until late November. Approximately 239 employees will be impacted by the idling. Resolute Forest Products will work with affected employees, all levels of government and other local authorities on programs to lessen the impact of the idling. Resolute employees affected by this idling will also be considered for job vacancies and opportunities at other Company facilities. In all cases, employees will be treated in accordance with the applicable collective agreements and Provincial legislation.”