Power station partial closure provokes job losses

The mayor of Alcudia, Barbara Rabassa, says that workers at the power station itself were given guarantees that "in one way or another" jobs would be preserved. However, there are workers from supplier companies. "These are the ones who most concern me. Nobody is talking about them."

The job losses apply to some thirty businesses and include some twenty self-employed drivers who were ferrying coal from the port to the power station. At the port itself, at least six workers have been let go by Transportes Marítimos de Alcudia. The reason is the drastic fall in the import of coal.

Rabassa adds that she has asked the minister for energy transition, the vice-president Juan Pedro Yllanes, to take appropriate measures to solve the job loss problem. He has replied that she and the town hall should not worry, as there are formulas to "reindustrialise through renewables".

Endesa has issued an assurance that workers at the power station will not be laid off. Almost twenty have been relocated, four of them voluntarily to the mainland, while there are plans for relocation and re-training for a further 44. This will mean reducing the workforce to 80. The power station, in effect, is now on stand-by rather being a principal supplier of electricity.

The company adds that the re-training also applies to employees from contractors. They will be employed, Endesa says, for the construction and operation of photovoltaic plants.