Bermuda?s two Fairmont hotels yesterday made 13 staff members redundant, saying the the positions they filled were no longer required.

Three staff were let go from the Fairmont Hamilton Princess, while ten staff members were made redundant at the Fairmont Southampton.

Bermuda Industrial Union president Derrick Burgess said the union had previously been told that more guest workers would be made redundant than local employees.

He said that while the hotel employees do not come under his organisation, the BIU had asked that any local employees that could be trained to take over foreign workers? jobs be given the opportunity to do so.

?At the moment I do not know what the skill set is of the people that were let go so I don?t know if they could have been retrained,? he said.

Mr. Burgess empathised with the former employees and said losing a job can be traumatic.

Minister of Home Affairs Randolph Horton, who holds a human resources post at Fairmont, told ZBM last night that he could not say if more Bermudians had been laid off than expatriates.

He also said Government had a number of training and employment services the former employees could use to help them find new jobs.