Big Rewards Tempt People to Work in Unsafe Locations

'It's dangerous, but people can triple their income in a year'

By Stephenie Overman

Publication date: 19 December 2005
Source: PM Online

Good pay encourages people to work in hostile environments overseas, according to one of the largest employee-owned engineering and construction companies in the US.

"It's dangerous, but people can triple their income in a year," said James Ridings, director of global staffing for Parsons Corporation. The company has won US government contracts for projects in Kosovo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq.

The company often recruits hundreds of expatriates under tight time constraints to work on construction projects in dangerous locations abroad – Ridings said that once a company wins a government contract it has only three months to get all the people it needs for the job. "If you bid on the contract the government expects you to have the people," he told delegates at the Global Recruiting Forum in Brussels.

Also speaking at the event, Ron Baulding, Parsons' HR manager in Baghdad, said that retention was more of a problem during the orientation period than during the assignment itself: "A small percentage don't come back from leave. Since January 2004 only three people have left."

Ridings emphasised that security was a top priority. Wherever Parsons locates it immediately hires a local security firm.