Kenai City Manager Rick Koch recently returned from the International City/County Manager Association conference where he was able to speak with other city managers affected by oil development like the proposed LNG Project in Nikiski.
He said one topic he has been contemplating lately is workforce flux.
Koch: “The workforce that we have now will become more mobile because of the tremendous amount of opportunities they may have for higher paying jobs, for positions that may better fit their personal choices for where they want to work. And we’ll be left to respond to that, the other night I may have made the statement that we can lose as much as 40% of our workforce when theres a 12 billion dollar project happening five miles away from us.”
Koch said that although he feels the City of Kenai is doing good at preparing for the possible changes, keeping the topic alive helps maintain the delivery of current services.
He said he spoke with one city manager in North Dakota…
Koch: “It’s a little bit more of the wild west there then I expect it to be here. They find themselves losing, like in the public works department, a gentle told me the public works department that was comprised of 12 employees, they lost all of them, they all went to work in the oil patch.”
Koch anticipates a variety of jobs could be available on a large-scale job like the LNG Project from office to laborer to operator.