Thorunn Howatt
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Nov 28/01) - Diavik Diamond Mines Inc. down-sized its contract workers by half after completion of its massive dike construction project.

But the workforce responsible for building the Diavik Diamond Mine at Lac de Gras can expect to be back to work shortly after the opening of an ice road.

Harvey Mandeville from Fort Resolution was a contractor at Diavik through Lac de Gras Constructors. Even though he lost his dike-construction job he is still training at the mine and learning how to operate heavy equipment. - Thorunn Howatt/NNSL photo

"Lac de Gras Constructors was one of the large (contractors). They were the fellows who were doing all the earth-work on site," said Diavik spokesperson Tom Hoefer, referring to the company in charge of building the dike.

"When a lot of the earth-work slows down they don't have a need for those people."

None of Diavik's own employees lost their jobs.

"The concept here is as if you were building a house. The reality is that as you are building your house you are bringing on more people and at some point in time you peak. As the house gets closer to completion, the numbers of people needed start to tail off," said Hoefer.

Diavik carries a workforce of as many as 1,500 people at its busiest time in mid-summer. The slow down coincides with a Christmas break and is part of the company's road map.

The future mine site will carry about 750 workers over the Christmas season.

During the summer of 2002 water will be pumped from behind the new 3.9-kilometre dike in preparation for open-pit mining.

"Toward the end of 2002 as the construction force decreases it will just overlap with an operations workforce that we will be building at the same time," said Hoefer.

Diavik's contractor work force should be at its lowest this January but start to scale up again in February.

"Once the winter road opens up again, then it will start to slowly come up again and then we will be at peak again in the June-July period," said Hoefer.

The diamond mine construction project is on schedule and on budget, said Hoefer.

"When we have work-force changes those are as planned. There is nothing cataclysmic about what's happened."

After this coming summer's worker re-start another slowdown can be expected toward the end of 2002. "Because we will actually have the mine very close to being finished and we will be bringing in an operations workforce."

The operations workforce is expected to even out at about 400 people.

Ekati Services Ltd. contracts housekeeping and food services for Diavik. As there are fewer construction contract workers living at the mine site, Ekati requires fewer employees to look after them.

"Diavik is going on next year. It's just that certain things can't be done in the cold," said Ekati spokesperson Wayne Brill.

"Then when the ice-road goes in they can haul more stuff in and then they can start working again."

Ekati's Lac de Gras employees mirror the mine site's workforce. They make up about 10 per cent of overall workers. When the number of contractors needed to keep construction on pace goes down, so does the number of Ekati Services employees.

Brill expects to send people back to work again in January. There are about 60 Ekati employees currently working at Lac de Gras.