Austal shipyards sail through coronavirus crisis

Austal has managed to ‘keep people employed, able to go home every night, pay their mortgage’, through the pandemic.

We have had to change the way we operate, but that hasn’t impacted our ongoing business, says Austal chief executive David Singleton. Picture: AAP

As a major employer in large shipyards at Henderson in Western Australia and Mobile Alabama, Austal chief executive David Singleton has had to deal with quite different COVID-19 environments.

His approach has been the same. “You know things go wrong every day in manufacturing and we’re used to being able to manage in that environment. COVID-19, while being new and different has just been another set of issues for us to manage,” he tells The Australian.

Austal is one of the largest industrial employers in Alabama with about 3800 on the payroll. A further 1200 employees are at Henderson with another 400 jobs to be saved through work on the six new cape class patrol vessels for the commonwealth

As an engineer, Singleton says he’s particularly proud of the number of jobs the global shipbuilder has managed to create and maintain through the pandemic including in places like Singapore and the Vietnam.

“We have not only managed to keep people safe in all our shipyards around the world including in Asia and the US, but we have also been able to keep them all employed. I am very conscious that a lot of people that work for us absolutely need that pay-check that comes in every month. We have a responsibility to try to make that continue as far as we possibly can.”

Through the shipyards working together, Singleton says the yards have figured out how to operate differently in order to work through the crisis, in many ways untouched by the effects of COVID-19.

“Sure we have had to change the way we operate, but that hasn’t impacted our ongoing business. Therefore we have kept everybody employed: 6000 people and all of the supply chain associated with that, thousands more, employed all the way through this period.”

“All of us know that when we get through the pandemic we are going to see the financial tsunami which hits many nations. We, Austal can’t do anything about that on a national basis, but we have been able to do something about that on a business basis, keeping people employed, able to go home every night, pay their mortgage, not worry about that part of their life and if I look back over my years, I’d say that’s going to be one of the real high points.”