Shipbuilding Industry Hiring Despite Economic Downturn

With Mississippi unemployment rate above 9%, the Gulf Coast’s shipbuilding continues to thrive. MPB’s Phoebe Judge reports.

The employment office at Northrop Grumman Shipbuilders in Pascagoula sits just down the road from the massive ship yard where some of the largest ships in the world are built, and the office is busy,

“We can have anywhere from 50 to 100 in here daily applying, interviewing and being tested.”

Keely Walker is a talent acquisition coordinator for Northrop Grumman. She’s in the process of helping two applicants go through the computerized job screening process, and says right now their looking to fill a number of different positions. Northrop Grumman is the largest manufacturer employer in Mississippi, employing 12,000 individuals across the state. Bill Glenn, is communications director for Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding,

“I think we are fortunate to be involved in an industry that is not downsizing as much as maybe some other industries are because our country needs these ships, our Navy, our Marine Corps, our Coast Guard they all need these ships. So that’s why we have a lot of opportunities for folks to work here.”

Warren Fairly, director of ship building for the Boilermakers a nation labor union, says it’s actually a good time to be a shipbuilder,

“In Pascagoula for example we have pretty secure jobs, once you hire in, and once you become astute at the shipbuilding trades, you are likely to be in demand somewhere.”

Demand for skilled workers is so great, that Bill Glenn says Northrop Grumman is doubling the size of their apprentice program. But it’s not just Northrop Grumman that is thriving, the shipbuilder VT Halter Marine also in Pascagoula is in the process of hiring 150 new employees.