About 300 Rosewood Little Dix Bay employees will need to find new jobs when the resort temporarily closes on May 1 for an 18-month renovation project, but some of them will already have new occupations thanks to a two-day job fair held by the resort last week.
Also participating in the fair were the firms that will renovate the resort in the coming months: The New York City-based Meyers Davis Studio, the Miami-based architectural firm OBMI, and the Puerto Rico-based Landscape Contractors and Design will need about 100 local employees, including carpenters, masons, painters, landscapers, and general labourers, said Little Dix Human Resources Director Collette DeJonge.
Some of the Rosewood staff received job offers even before the fair finished, Ms. DeJonge said.
Though Harneys didn’t make any offers the same day, the firm’s senior training officer, Rakeema Turnbull, said she’s hopeful someone from Little Dix will be chosen for the senior accounts assistant position Harneys is looking to fill.
“They do appear to be qualified people,” Ms. Turnbull said. “Their resumes are impressive.”
Likewise, RTW Head of Retail Andy Clayton said he expects to make job offers.
“They have the skills we want, so we should get at least a couple people,” Mr. Clayton said.
One of the challenges RTW faced is that all its openings are on Tortola, making it hard to hire Virgin Gordians for positions that don’t have set shifts.
However, Mr. Clayton said that the company is willing to work with VG residents for such positions.
Scholarship
Along with the job fair, Little Dix is also offering one internship and one scholarship.
The internship programme will have a Little Dix associate spend time at “two or three” Rosewood properties around the world, learning different skills at each one, Ms. DeJonge said.
The scholarship is for an employee to participate in Johnson & Wales University’s four-year hospitality programme, she added.
Qualified candidates for those programmes are Little Dix associates who are Virgin Islands belongers and between the ages of 18 and 30, she said.
Closure
The announcement that some 300 Little Dix employees would be terminated when the resort closes in May to undergo renovations came on Jan. 15, when Premier Dr. Orlando Smith released a public statement saying he was made aware of the impending closure the previous day.
Since then, VG residents have been bracing for the economic impact of the closure of the island’s largest employer.
However, Little Dix officials have touted the temporary closure as something that will be good for the territory in the long run, saying the much-needed renovations will allow the property to maintain its status as one of the preeminent resorts in the region.
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