Under military rule, Venezuela oil workers quit in a stampede
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-oil-workers-insight/under-military-rule-venezuela-oil-workers-quit-in-a-stampede-idUSKBN1HO0H9APRIL 17, 2018
...What’s going on is that thousands of oil workers are fleeing the state-run oil firm under the watch of its new military commander, who has quickly alienated the firm’s embattled upper echelon and its rank-and-file, according to union leaders, a half-dozen current PDVSA workers, a dozen former PDVSA workers and a half-dozen executives at foreign companies operating in Venezuela.
Some PDVSA offices now have lines outside with dozens of workers waiting to quit. In at least one administrative office in Zulia state, human resources staff quit processing out the quitters, hanging a sign, “we do not accept resignations,†an oil worker there told Reuters.
Official workforce statistics have become a closely guarded secret, but a dozen sources told Reuters that many thousands of workers had quit so far this year - an acceleration of an already troubling outflow last year.
About 25,000 workers resigned between the start of January 2017 and the end of January 2018, said union leader and government critic Ivan Freites, citing internal company data. That figure comes out of a workforce last officially reported by PDVSA at 146,000 in 2016.
Resignations appear to have increased sharply this year, said Freites, a prominent union leader at Venezuela’s major refineries in the northern Paraguana peninsula.
“It’s unstoppable,†he said.
Many of those leaving now are engineers, managers, or lawyers - high-level professionals that are almost impossible to replace amid Venezuela’s economic meltdown, the PDVSA workers and foreign executives told Reuters....
