Staff facing a spell of unemployment as a result of the temporary closure of the Wyndham Hotel are being given assistance to find other jobs.

A list of potential employers seeking extra staff, including the Southampton Princess Hotel, a pie factory and the Riddell?s Bay Golf Course, has been posted up on walls around the hotel and passed around on e-mail by the management company overseeing the running of the hotel.

A Boston-based spokesman for the Wyndham Hotel group told that ?every effort is being made to help find employment for staff? during the three month closure, which is due to start this weekend and last until April 1.

Following claims by some hospitality workers that they had not been given forewarning about the intention to close the hotel during the low season, the spokesman said the hotel had closed at the same time during the past two years for construction work to be carried out and this year?s closure should not have come as a surprise.

He added: ?We are trying to relocate employees and we plan to re-hire as many as possible in March before the re-opening. Hopefully we can keep as many of the staff as possible.?

News of the closure was made at the start of this week and the Bermuda Industrial Union, whose president Derrick Burgess has expressed concern about the situation, intends to hold a meeting with its members at the South Shore hotel next Tuesday.

Mr. Burgess last night he was not impressed by the hotel management?s ?surprise? that employees did not think the hotel would be temporarily closing again this year.

He said: ?It is quite obvious they are not living in the real world. We had a meeting with them in late October or early November and we asked if they would be closing and they said ?no?. For them to say what they are saying now shows that there has been a lack of communication in their structure.?

He said he was aware that the Department of Labour was making efforts to find alternative employment for those affected by the hotel?s closure.

Last autumn the management of the hotel was taken over by the Cendant Corporation.

A spokesman for the US company said the winter closure of the hotel was not unusual in the industry and would allow the hotel management to consider options for the future of the resort, but added that it is not intended that the hotel undergo any re-branding during the closure period.