Stillwater miners attend ‘reverse career fair’ as layoffs approach

COLUMBUS – Employers from across the United States with open positions were at the Stillwater Civic Center Tuesday for the nearly 700 Sibanye Stillwater employees who will be laid off next month.

“Nothing has really been stable lately,” Jacob Kamppinen, an employee at the mine, said Tuesday. “This one affects a lot of people.”

Kamppinen, who has worked for the mine for more than five years, knows he could be fired. So he and many others attended a reverse career fair hosted by Sibanye Stillwater, with more than 60 potential employers on site, and almost 100 in total when you add in the remote opportunities available. The career fair will be held again on Wednesday, October 2 from 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM.

“I’m originally from Montana, and I hope to stay here,” Kamppinen said. “I have a wife and two boys, and they are the main reason I try to stay local because they are already in the community and I don’t want to uproot them.”

South Africa-based Sibanye Stillwater announced on September 12 that it is cutting 680 jobs, halting production at its main Nye mine and reducing operations at its East Boulder mine near Big Timber. The company cited the declining price of palladium, the company’s largest production in Montana. The company says it will begin notifying miners who will lose their jobs on November 12.

Staying in the county may not be an option for many, which would create an even bigger dent in Stillwater County’s economy than has already been created by the loss of revenue from the mine.

“When we looked at the revenue generated from the mine over the last few years, you could see that revenue from the mine had decreased,” said Stillwater County Commissioner Tyrel Hamilton. “About four years ago, three to four budget years ago, that number was about $12.5 million. Last year, that figure dropped all the way to about $3 million. So a significant amount of revenue loss.”

Hamilton said the local government has taken proactive measures and was already anticipating what is now the reality.

“We’ve gone ahead and reduced our overall budget by about $2.5 million,” Hamilton said. “I guess the simplest way to put it is that the county has about a hundred and thirty-two value bank. This year we have dropped all the way to one hundred and six. So we will be asking significantly fewer mills from property owners.”

The $2.5 million reduction in the budget came from the province’s capital projects fund, meaning Stillwater is delaying new construction projects, Hamilton said. County services and maintenance projects were not reduced, Hamilton said.

But Hamilton hopes their community and province continue to thrive.

“Small communities like we have here in Stillwater County are great places to raise a family,” Hamilton said. “It’s our hope that some of these people who work at the mine can hopefully find a job where they can still live in Stillwater County and commute to work, or, you know, or whatever that case may be.”