Not so happy new year for Falkirk area workers
A supermarket giant is laying off 80 temporary staff after the Christmas rush is over.
The employees, currently working at Asda’s new distribution depot in Grangemouth, will be let go on Saturday, January 5.
Officially opening its doors last month, the £38.5 million depot employed staff on temporary contracts at points between February and October to help get the site up and running and assist with the extra workload over the festive season.
Asda stated this week the staff in question were all aware of the date their contracts came to an end.
A spokesperson said: “There are no redundancies at the site – just the planned end of temporary contracts that we took on to help the transfer into the new site and busy Christmas period.
“We took on around 80 temporary colleagues, all of whom were aware they were on temporary contracts. We’re really grateful for their contribution to the new opening and will be liaising with them all directly on their finish date.”
The massive 35.7-acre Earls Road facility will support 58 Asda stores in Scotland, replacing the existing depot in nearby West Mains Industrial Estate.
Asda claimed a total of 90 new jobs had been created and many more secured with the opening of the new depot, which features state-of-the-art amenities including a restaurant serving locally-sourced food and a gym to work it off.
The development has not been without controversy, with complaints over trees being cut down to make way for the massive structure and fears voiced that the addition of the depot would bring traffic chaos to the town.
Locals - including Grangemouth Community Council - have been concerned about the effect the depot would have on the area’s roads since August last year, when it was announced Asda would be building on the former ICI Social Club site.
Asda denied the new depot would add significantly to traffic levels and Falkirk Council stated the roads network would be able to cope since the majority of road movements would take place at off peak times.
In Denny, more winter misery seems to have hit workers at Nathans Wastesavers plant as over 30 of them reportedly discovered they were being made redundant after a month-long consultation.
The Winchester Avenue business, one of the UK’s largest textile recycling companies, employs over 200 people who sort through 600 tonnes of textiles every week so it can be exported to Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe.
It is believed a downturn in business led to the recent redundancies.
Nathan Wastesavers was going to confirm the number of job losses and send further details but had failed to do so as The Falkirk Herald went to press.
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Weather for Falkirk
Thursday 23 May 2013
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