Shaw Group Makes Second Round Of Cuts

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — The Shaw Group Inc. has taken a second round of cuts in two months in its pipe fabrication business, bringing the number of lost jobs in Louisiana and Oklahoma to 410.

The company said it cut 40 workers from a shop in Walker, La., last week and is closing a plant in Tulsa by the end of August, ending another 168 jobs.

In late April, Shaw said its closure of a pipe fabrication shop in West Monroe would end the jobs of 202 employees.

The cuts are due to a reduced number of orders at each shop, said Shaw spokeswoman Gentry Brann.

"The piping, fabrication and construction industry has always seen an influx and outflow of employees based on the quantity of work at any one given time," Brann said.

The company had been ramping up pipe fabrication before the recession. Last year, Shaw opened a 370,000-square-foot pipe fabrication facility in Matamoros, Mexico — just across the U.S. border from Brownsville, Texas — but the company said then that it didn't expect that expansion to close other shops.

Shaw had operated the Tulsa plant since 2006.

The company is holding a job fair next week in Lake Charles, where Shaw is filling a 1,400-job payroll for a nuclear reactor components plant. Workers who lost their jobs will be eligible to apply for the jobs in Lake Charles or elsewhere within the company, Brann said.

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Information from: The Advocate, http://www.2theadvocate.com