FULL IMPACT YET TO BE FELT
Janice Thomson will clock on for her final shift at Pinneys on Thursday after 12 years at the plant.
Janice, 52, said the full effect of the closure on Annan – home to 8,500 people – will arrive at Christmas when redundancy money starts to run out.
“The big impact of all this is still to hit the town,” she said. “Come Christmas, those still without jobs will have to start tightening their belts when the realisation sinks in that no more wages are coming in.”
For Janice and her husband Gary, it has been a hard blow.
The couple have been long-time workers at Pinneys, along with their son-in-law. Janice’s mum Jessie Lupton, 84, worked there in the 1970s.
Gary was at the factory for 19 years but as he changed his role last year to a contract with a privately-run cleaning firm at the plant, he received no redundancy pay.
Fortunately, he has secured another job in town and Janice will now have to look for employment.
“The financial pressures have been enormous since we first heard our jobs were under threat,” she said. “But a lot of the people who have already left have found jobs, albeit many are part-time.”
Janice said the atmosphere in the fish processing plant in recent weeks as workers started leaving was “like being a ghost factory”.
“It is sad, as Pinneys has been at the heart of Annan for so many years,” she said.