Fluor Corp., the engineering and construction company that traded its Aliso Viejo headquarters earlier this year for a Texas home, plans to hire roughly 300 engineers in Orange County in coming months, according to company officials.
The hiring stands to reverse a slide in local jobs at Fluor that started in 2001 when the company had roughly triple the number of OC workers it does today.
Fluor left behind about 1,100 people at its engineering operations in Aliso Viejo and Irvine after shifting its headquarters to Irving, Texas, in April.
Another 400 people stayed at Fluor’s Long Beach facility.
Fluor is seeing a big growth spurt in Southern California, said Luis Martinez, vice president and general manager of Fluor’s Southern California operations.
“With the growth we’re experiencing today, we need to address the volume of work,” he said.
Fluor held a job fair last month in Long Beach where roughly 500 engineers, designers and others were interviewed for the company’s oil and chemical industry work.
“We look to grow by another 300 people here in Orange County,” Martinez said.
The vacancies should be filled by next spring, he said.
Fluor does design and engineering work for and oversees construction of factories, refineries, power plants and other facilities.
After decades in OC, Fluor moved its base to Texas to be closer to customers in the oil and chemical sectors. Chief Executive Alan Boeckmann led the way, moving to Dallas a year ago.
All of Fluor’s top brass moved, taking about 60 executives from Aliso Viejo.
The planned hiring stands to more than make up for the jobs lost in the Texas move.
The local hiring is being driven by an unprecedented “growth spurt” in the oil and chemical industry that hasn’t been seen in three decades, according to Martinez and Paul Boyette, Fluor’s operations manager for Southern California.
“Some say it’s the biggest ever,” Martinez said. “Around the world, no new refineries have been built in many years, so the industry has to catch up.”
Fluor sees “sustained growth” in jobs locally, according to Martinez and Boyette.
Hiring isn’t easy.
“The availability of college students is very good,” Boyette said. “But the ones with 10-years experience are the ones we are having trouble filling.”
The Fluor executives estimate that work done out of its Southern California operations is for West Coast refineries, including about 25% in California alone. The rest of the local work is on global projects.
Fluor has gone after work in the Gulf Coast region.
It got a jolt of business after Hurricane Katrina working on oil refineries and offshore oil drilling platforms. Power companies also enlisted Fluor to help restore power plants and grids.
It also won work with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
