Sunday, December 22, 2013

Brazil World Cup seeks Haitian migrants amid worker shortage

Dec. 16 (Bloomberg) -- A company building one of the 12 stadiums for next year’s soccer World Cup in Brazil is recruiting Haitian workers after falling months behind schedule.

Construction firm Mendes Junior has brought in more than 100 workers from the Caribbean country to help complete the Arena Pantanal in Cuiaba, according to Mauricio Guimaraes, special secretary for the World Cup for the state of Mato Grosso. Even with the additional assistance, the stadium, where seats have yet to be installed and work on the roof remains unfinished, will miss a Dec. 31 deadline by at least two months, Guimaraes said.

Haiti is the poorest country in the Americas, and was devastated by an earthquake in 2010, which claimed thousands of lives and displaced more than 1 million. Cuiaba, in central Brazil, is one of several cities in the country that have faced labor shortages as growth in other sectors, and the scale of infrastructure work, has led to a shortage of manual workers. Plans for the 570.1 million-reais ($244 million) stadium were altered as a result of the worker shortage, with designers opting for prefabricated pieces.

No comments:

Post a Comment