Anyone have any details on the layoffs at HOS today (apparently)?
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3 of the 280’s are being stacked.
Is offshore drilling slowing down again?
I just did a history search on 3 of the HOS 280’s & they were all old Edison Chouest boats bought in last few of years. Unless HOS got them at really good deals with premium dayrates afterwards it would seem like another bad business decision by the Hornbeck management team? Or perhaps they can’t find crew for them?
https://hornbeckoffshore.com/fleet/featured/hosmax-fleet/280-class-osvs
If there was a crew shortage like so many people claim, and they were having trouble crewing their boats, they certainly wouldn’t be laying people off. They would be working the crew from these three boats into the rest of their large fleet to maintain some spare capacity.
If they are laying off, they must have plenty of crew.
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Boats Off Charter are extremely expensive sitting at the dock.
So what?
A sensible company would use the crew on other boats. Adjust schedules or whatever to fit them in.
3 Boats is about 60-70 People. There aren’t 60-70 openings within the Fleet.
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I remember being in fourchon last spring and HOS had a lot of boats sitting…most of them were the chouest 280s. I asked a friend who was at HOS on another boat in their fleet with a steady contract what the deal was. He said he heard the boats that were sitting were either short of crew or HOS was still in the process of putting some work into them.
We all know that usually this time of year the gulf slows down. If that’s the case hopefully it’s short lived.
For the folks that got laid off, there are probably plenty of options if they aren’t too picking. It’s not like it’s 2016…yet.
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How many boats does Hornbeck have, 50?
How many crew total, 1000+?
With 1000 crew, probably 10 will be out sick, and probably 10 more will quit, retire, flunk drug tests, or get fired in any given week.
It won’t take long to need more 60 crew.
They could reduce the number of people working over or working 28/14. The could clean out deadwood. They could offer people extra time off. They could go from 28/28 to 21/28 on a few boats. There are lots of ways to avoid laying off 60 people when you’ve got 1000 workers and have enough attrition that you’ll need another 60 workers within a 3-6 weeks.
If there was a surplus of mariners available, it would make sense to layoff crew, figuring that they could be easily replaced or recalled when needed.
If there is an actual shortage of mariners, then it’s crazy to lay people off, only to find that they’ll be hard to replace when needed in a few weeks.
Layoffs probably indicate that there is not really a shortage of mariners.
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Public companies don’t make money by finding ways to avoid layoffs, they appease the shareholders and the board by executing those layoffs as soon as boots hit the pier on stacked boats. Last company I was at layed off as soon as guys landed back in the US, only to scramble a week later.
Each ship is usually its own cost center, and if money isn’t coming in then it had better stop going out on the balance sheet. It doesn’t make financial sense to just shift the burden. Saving say $30-40k/day conservatively by laying off 60 sailors is going to happen every time if there’s no firm contract in the pipeline. Salaries plus benefits add up fast.
The balance sheet doesn’t care how hard it will be to rehire a few when a boat gets unstacked. Good for the workers, morale, quality and experienced workforce continuity? No. Good for the share price? Yes.
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Exactly. Todd now has to answer to Wall Street. He guessed wrong on Mr Gary’s 280’s.
I thought HOS was a private company? Did they go public again?
Ahh, right you are, I thought they filed to go public again in 2023 but I guess it never happened.
It was not suggested that they be kept on stacked boats doing nothing at $30,000 a day.
It was suggested that they be reassigned to work on other boats on a reduced schedule. (That would reduce the schedule of some other mariners too). That keeps them around and productive, but costs very little.
A company the size of Hornbeck must lose 10-20 people a week through attrition. 60 people could be reabsorbed to fill vacancies in 3-6 weeks.
Losing contracts for lack of crew is no way to save money either.
You’re right about be private but so is shipengr & Offshore44 about answering to shareholders. The private equity firms/vc that bailed HOS out after their last bankruptcy is probably harder to fool than the run of the mill public shareholders. Also contracts for those bailout funds are usually more beneficial to the lender/investor than the borrower/business operator. If Mr. Hornbecks doesn’t play his cards right or hits a hard market he might end up like Marty Bouchard or Harley Franco.
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“Losing contracts for lack of crew is no way to save money either.”
Time to get a grip of realty my friend. Loss of contracts CAUSES Crew layoffs. Helloo!
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We will not entertain any noise or speculations. We will keep focus on our jobs and task ahead of us.
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