SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - After issuing permanent layoffs to its remaining 35 employees last month, Arslanian Cutting Works is getting back on its feet again.

Artur Margaryan works at his cutting and polishing post at Arslanian Cutting Works, where five employees resumed work Thursday and an additional 14 will also be back in the next two weeks.

Increased demand for polished diamonds among retailers in the second quarter has injected much-needed cash into the Montreal-based company whose partners also own the Yellowknife cutting plant, where five staff members are back at their posts and another 14 are expected to join them over the next two weeks.

Increased demand for polished diamonds among retailers in the second quarter has injected much-needed cash into the Montreal-based company whose partners also own the Yellowknife cutting plant, where five staff members are back at their posts and another 14 are expected to join them over the next two weeks.

"Because of the economy today, we had no choice but to have a temporary close because our inventory was too high and we (as a distributorship) were not performing as much as we were cutting," said Ron Basal, co-owner of Arslanian and its distributor, Polar Ice Diamonds.

"The three months that we took off was to reduce our inventory, which we did, and our second quarter looks very strong."

The plant's director of operations, Bob Bies, began talking to laid-off employees two weeks ago about signing a new contract to resume work.

"Most of them, thank goodness, were willing to come back," he said, adding that several staffers had accepted jobs at other workplaces during the plant's closure.

Among the five employees who began work on Thursday was Artur Margaryan. "I feel great because this is the job we've been doing for 10, 11 years," he said.

Bies said the company hopes to have a total of 35 employees back by October or November, and possibly build up to the plant's original staff size of 50 in the next year or two.

Arslanian has been in talks with the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment over financing. Though the initial 19 staff rehires were possible without government help, talks continue in order for the company to rehire even more employees, said Basal.

Neither Bies nor Basal would reveal more about the status of talks.

The plant, which employed 50 Yellowknifers at the start of the year, began issuing layoffs in February. "Obviously it's unfortunate when a company has to lay employees off," said Patrick Doyle, president of the Yellowknife Chamber of Commerce. "...to hear that the conditions are in place to start hiring some of those people back and demand is increasing, that's great news."