U.S. Navy concerned about Gulf Coast post-hurricane workforce

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Navy Secretary Donald Winter said on Wednesday he was concerned about maintaining a stable workforce at Gulf Coast shipyards after the recent evacuation caused by Hurricane Gustav.

Winter said preliminary reports showed minimal, if any, damage to the yards, but he was worried about maintaining continuity in the workforce, which took a big hit after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

"It's taken us a while to recover from Katrina in terms of the workforce, and I just worry about whether or not we're going to have another reset here," Winter told Reuters in an interview.

"It's something that we're going to have to look at very carefully," Winter said.

Northrop Grumman Corp, which operates shipyards in Pascagoula and Gulfport, Mississippi, and New Orleans and Tallulah, Louisiana, said it still assessing the impact of the latest hurricane on its employees and facilities.

The company had shut down operations in preparation for the storm but will resume full operations by Monday, said spokeswoman Margaret Mitchell-Jones.

Australia's Austal operates a shipyard in Mobile, Alabama, where it is working on the first Littoral Combat Ship being built by General Dynamics Corp.

Winter has repeatedly asked questions about workforce issues at various U.S. shipyards in recent years, and strongly backs apprenticeship and other training programs.

Eleven oil refineries remained shut in the region on Wednesday, some due to power outages after the storm made landfall near New Orleans on Monday. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said as many as 1.4 million homes and businesses statewide remained without power.

Winter said he worried about the impact that Katrina, Gustav and other hurricanes still expected to affect the coast would have on the "basic living environment in the Gulf area," and whether skilled workers would decide to relocate to safer, less hurricane-prone areas.

"You can do things to improve the survivability, the viability of the production facilities, but you also have to recognize that we are dependent in the long term on the ... people who make these ships, or aircraft, or whatever it is," Winter said.

(Editing by Phil Berlowitz)